I'm hoping this thread doesn't turn into a back and forward about which boxer is better than which etc. Regardless of personal opinions about any individual boxer, I think it's fair to say that if somehow someone from the 60's/70's was sent to the future to read todays boxing forums, travel back in time and report back who are the top 10 greatest boxers of our era, they'd return utterly confused with a list of about 3-4 boxers in no particular order where they thought there was enough agreement between boxing fans that they were actually any good at all. They'd never in a million years be able to ascertain who should be in consideration for postions 5-10 as for every post stating how great a boxer is/was, they'd immediately come across another post disagreeing and stating how **** he was. So my question is: Is it some combination of us+the internet+plus the age we live in where views always appear to be black and white following a loss (minus a few greats). If he lost he's ****, all the evidence now he's lost 100% proves he was always **** and will from now on until the end of eternity be ****. Back in the day a loss wasn't so much of a set back and could easily be followed by great wins. Is it the fault of the Mayweather effect? Although I cannot really see how this can be an excuse for us, irrelevant of how you think he went about 0 loses, it's still odd that anybody would have the view that now 1 person in ouir era has achieved this feat that now means that a 'great' boxer must be able to do exactly the same or else their entire career has been some kind of smoke and mirrors and they are merely 'Ok...ish'. Is it the fault of modern day boxers where a lot of them barely seem to fight once or twice a year, let alone fight other top guys, and we simply do not have a large enough amount of evidence over a career to decide a boxers approximate place within his era and his greatness? Or maybe even, that there actually were people that for example thought to themselves 'That George Foreman's ****, I always knew he was' when he lost to Ali and similar views to what you see on here but they had nowhere to express those views so it gives us an impression that views of boxers were pretty standard amongst boxing fans back in the day. Maybe something else, what do you guys think?
Interesting post and welcome to the forum. I think you've identified many of the key reasons: 1. I think the single biggest factor is not enough fights between top fighters, and controversial outcomes, so it's hard to see who is the best. Other sports have similar issues but mitigated by evidence, e.g. in tennis few debate that Djokovic, Nadal and Federer are the greatest of the last 30+ years because we have lots of matches (mostly uncontroversial) to evaluate them by. 2. Our culture which tends to hype things up followed by a crash. It's a good marketing strategy, get people to tune in to the next big thing over and over again. Occasionally one of them turns out to be actually very good. 3. The ability of everyone to promulgate their own opinions on forums such as these, social media, etc. back in the 60s and 70s it was basically a small group of influential people whose opinions mattered. I am sure that there were people who thought Ali, or Foreman, or Louis or anyone else was useless when they suffered a loss. 4. The passage of time helps clarify (after the dust has settled) who was and wasn't a great fighter in their era. There is a natural difficulty in trying to judge fighters whose careers have not finished yet (and even if recently retired, their resumes can be affected by results of people they fought previously).
I get the feeling #3 is a big one. And I'm absolutely sure they existed in the past. Boxing is a sport where you know a fighter is going to take a loss. So it's a safe space for the "I knew I was right" types to flourish. Then mix in that boxing has always been quite tribal, and it becomes a battle ground. On top of that, with social media we can fashion almost a personal grievance with a minor celebrity/ public figure/ organizations (WBC *fist shake*) and make it a side-hobby to take them down. Now among this, extreme people always existed, but social media amplifies such thoughts and reach, and let's them run wild, as they catalogue every perceived infringement, and then creating posts, videos, comments across a dozen platforms ad infinitum. (I'm going to get you WBC *shakes fist harder*)
Excellent post. Re # 3 - yeah, likely there were some fans who unrealistically pulled the shutters down on a fighter upon a loss. Old boxing magazines provided for letters sent in by readers - a small “voice” sampling for Joe Public of yesteryear as compared to today. Still, by and large, I think fans were far less prone to knee jerk and unreasonably dismiss fighters upon a single loss. When the best actually engage the best, a loss(es) are almost a given. Unfortunately, the attitude that prevails today among fans ultimately feeds back to fighters and how they carefully manage their careers - fiercely trying to protect their “0”s or keep a lid on their minimal losses lest it bust their careers.
Yeah, but they probably didn't publish the ones that looked like a serial killer's collage Great point
The internet means we get to express every single thought on the sport we have and have a lot more information at our disposal to make those thoughts. And if we forget a kernel of information we can get it back at a snap of a finger. People in 1970 didn't have boxer rec or any of the many many resources one can use to compare fighters from past eras. They had their experiences from the fights they watched, they had the newspaper and if they were lucky maybe a boxing almanac of some sort. The stupidist boxing redditor has access to 100x more information than the cleverest of golden age pundits. If we give people 50 years ago our tools those tools would change them and how they viewed a lot of things.
Haha, yes there would’ve been heavy vetting. Said letters might’ve been referred straight to the FBI’s BAU.
