You going to tell me that this is a good era? Other eras at least captured the public's attention with great fights and the fighters could go 12 rounds without hugging. I have yet to see a heavyweight of the current crop do that.
Which public? The American public? No, because America has horrible heavyweights at this time. The German, East Europe and at times the British public? Different story. By the way, watch most Ali fights from the 70's and count the hugging, grabbing of the neck, grabbing of the rope, general stalling tactics and honestly tell me that ****- minus nostalgia- was engaging boxing.
Ali was a known hugger in the 70's, but he would also throw punches too. The Vitali Klitschko-Juan Carlos Gomez fight was just horrible.
Wrong. Billiards is a game where skills can be measured objectionably. Just like running, Swimming etc. Why is it that Walter Lindrum from the 1920s (Dempseys era) has records which modern athletes cannot match? The answer is simple. It is because unlike the usual sports, like running etc. boxing is the only sport where training (and even no of fights) was taken more seriously. Nowadays, fighters rarely fight, nearly always have hand picked opponents and dont train as hard and as often as the older fighters. What chance do we have of getting a talented freak. Occassionally a Tyson, Jones Jr etc will pop their head, but very rarely. How much better would say a David Tua be today, if when he started his career, he fought every single month, trained every single day without periods off that made his weight balloon. Isnt there a chance that he might have actually kept his weight down, learned an awful lot more and generally became a much better fighter than what he is now. Particularly if there was only one champion, and he could actually fight the best fighters instead of taking the easy road. Like any sport, boxers will only improve when they regularly box the very best fighters.
Normally I would agree with you. But right now truly is a weak era....in the heavyweight division anyway. Even if the Klits were to fight, it wouldn't suddenly make the heavyweight division exciting again. The heavyweight fights have been horrible across the board. Valuev? A title holder? Seriously? It's a joke. The man can't even BOX in the true sense of the word. Wlad's fight against Ibragimov was embarrassing. I mean, just look at how old these top contenders are. The proof is right there. There is no way these geezers would be competitive in a different decade. Guys used to have to be in their prime to compete at the top. I do think Wlad and a couple others are talented, but other than that it's a barren wasteland.
Because he's trying to convince us of the same old bull**** we've heard a hundred times over in the General Forum by simpletons with no understanding of the sport. And no, he wasn't just asking a question.
Ussain Bolt probably would whup Jesse Jackson over 100 metres and he'd likely leave Dr King and Malcolm X in his wake as well.:thumbsup
Agree with you that an old time runner would improve if you bought them into today's better training methods, better diet etc environment. The killer though is that people just keep getting bigger every generation and that's one of the main reasons why times, heights and distances achieved keep improving. In boxing the major advantage the Klits have is their height, reach and power - are all human evolutionary advantages - and why small statue heavyweights of the past would struggle against them. In the lower divisions this advantage is controlled to a degree by weight limits.
This is interesting, could you explain a bit more? I don't know Lindrum. In addition to the points made about athleticism being just a smaller part of the huge list of demands that a boxer must subscribe to, there are two more to take into account: 1. The rules have seen a tremendous change over the last 100 years that select different athletic talents. For instance, i don't think Jeffries would be able to make it past contender status under today's rules, and vice versa, Wlad would not have much success under Jeffries' rules where stamina and endurance had a way bigger emphasis. 2. Weight limits. Nutrition and health care have improved a lot over the last 50 years, and one can see that the heavyweights have grown from 185-195lbs on average to 205-220lbs. Of course, there are still plenty of 185-195lbs boxers; in fact, much more than the ones mentioned above 200lbs. However, it became more and more clear that they had become too small to compete with their bigger counterparts, who now had a good amount of athletic talent as well, contrary to most of the big heavyweights before the 60's. Hence, introduction of the cruiserweight division to make things more fair. So, in that sense, i do think there is a definitive athletic acceleration in that heavyweights now are bigger but still well coordinated. For instance: Tunney/Corbett - 6'0, 185lbs ====== Ali/Holmes - 6'3, 215lbs Jack Dempsey - 6'1, 190lbs ======= Mike Tyson 5'11 1/2, 215lbs Joe Louis - 6'2, 204lbs ======== Lennox Lewis - 6'5, 245lbs If that's not athletic progress, then i don't know what is.
The cruiserweight division was introduced to make more minor titles, more championships, more TV money, more sanctioning fees, more promotional opportunities. It wasn't strictly a necessity. Many fighters who can make cruiserweight choose to fight as heavyweights because the money is better. Eddie Chambers admits there are too many good fighters at cruiserweight for it to make sense financially, he said he'd rather fight a rated 6'6" heavyweight than go down and compete against guys like himself. He's just one example. Also, with 24-48 hour intervals between weigh-in and fights these days, we have some genuinely big 215 - 220 pound cruiserweights competing in the same division as genuine 185 pounders. There is always room for another division, but they are never necessary. However many divisions we introduced there will always be people manipulating it, and bigger isn't necessarily better anyway - and I dont assume weight equates to real size and strength, nevermind ability.
That's the problem. These folks, "well look at sprinters, they're always improving" ...how F-ing well different is boxing to running in a line? All these peeps who gorp at muscles, love skipping about and proclaiming their 'the best baby' have not got the fiddliest.