Is the drilling of the fundamentals...

Consider the requirement to succeed and the conditions and you will understand the attention of detail required. Long ago it used to be a life's commitment to enter the elite level the fundamentals appealed much more then when you look at the alternative...

 

Where's proof of lost fundamentals in boxing? Exhibit A. Is Wilder being the
Heavyweight Champ of the World. Years ago he would've been seen as
Jeff Sims. Sims was a tremendous puncher but every time he fought a
top ten fighter he lost.
Wilder's skill level is about the same as Sims late 70's early 80's.

 

When was the golden age of “drilling the fundamentals,” and when did it end?

 

Yes. Massively. They’re impatient waiting to do weights and box jumps and sprints and all that nonsense that’s totally irrelevant to boxing.

 

One thing I will say about boxing Gyms in general is that they’re all stubbornly full of it.

only their way is the best way. And every other way is wrong lol. I’ve had a few trainers who all taught me things but they all thought they knew best. Mostly minor things but I think the boxing community would do well to take from each other.

 

Obviously it has always been. It is widespread application that may have declined in the eyes of the OP.

 

Not a bad mentality to have, when being wildly innovative is a good way to get punched.

The martial arts world was chronically innovative from the 60s onward. So much so that it needed a decade of UFCs to start flushing all that pathological innovation out of its system.

I mean, it's deeply annoying, but having seen the alternatives...

 

Wilder has literally spent the last year and a half drilling the fundamentals with Malik Scott.

Of all the people you could've picked, it's hilarious you picked THE ONLY GUY who has spent the last 18 months training day after day working on the fundamentals.

And he's 2-1-1 against the current Ring top 10 and is 10-1-1 in title fights against WBC rated fighters.

You couldn't possibly be more wrong in a post that is only a couple lines long.

Jeff Sims?

 

Yes but boxing isn’t 20 different martial arts with a history. It’s the same sport…you don’t generally see that when training for basketball, baseball, football. Even other combat sports dojo’s aren’t as close minded.
Even Lewis said it’s best to go to multiple trainers once you learned everything you could from the people training you.
The reason trainers talk themselves up is because they don’t want you going anywhere else.

 

The problem is, OP seems to be speculating based on things he's seen on YouTube (my apologies to him if I'm wrong).

I'm not knowledgeable or pompous enough to make categorical claims about the state of boxing training, but I know that I've seen plenty of trainers "drilling fundamentals" every time I've stepped into a boxing gym. I mean, it's the first thing decent trainers do when kids step into the gym.

I'd bet today's fighters spend much, much more time drilling fundamentals over the course of their lives than a lot of the golden age classic fighters did.

 

Well, yes and no. Boxing has been refining itself for a long time, its stakes are quite high (in terms of health and career trajectory both), and it's a pretty *complicated* sport that's opponent-dependent and intangible-centered. Even if it slows development down, I would imagine there's something reassuring in knowing that the stuff you're doing to prepare for a fight also worked for Floyd Patterson, and Joe Frazier, and Joe Louis, all the way back to Jack Dempsey.

 

I should state I more mean in terms of practicing form, pre workouts, mitts, etc. Most teach the proper forms eventually but differ drastically in terms of drills and what I notice are smaller things. How to Parry, slipping, styles, counters, body punching etc. Some of these things should be universally taught at all gyms but definitely aren’t. We all watch these “contenders” with what looks like very limited skills. They don’t use any tricks that should be in their bags. That’s why guys like Floyd and Wlad and Bhop lasted so long. They just fundamentally knew more then their opponents.

 

Probably true. Of course, the need for proprietary, secret techniques is an old one in combat sports as well. And it might be that whatever drills they're teaching, it's something that worked (somewhat well, at least) for a generation or two. Why ****** around with your contender's training in a big money fight?

At least, I can understand that line of thinking, even if I don't necessarily agree with it.

There's an incident that happened in the 1950s/60s in Peru that this reminds me of. A fancy American university decided that they were going to create the most efficient agricultural village on Earth in the middle of Peru, so they bought a village -- literally bought it, peasants and all -- from a local magnate.

The peasants on the village, like most peasants everywhere, were conservative and risk-averse. They feared new stuff, like the boxing coaches you mentioned. So when these Americans come in with their single, new and improved species of super-potato, a lot of the peasants kept cultivating their dozens of native breeds of "inferior" potatoes.

The peasants looked silly as a result when the Americans created huge crops of super potatoes. This little village turned into a sizable % of the total NATION'S potato output.

...until everything crashed with a blight. Killed the super-spuds dead.

But the blight didn't kill the dozens of native potatoes. At least not all of them. Because the native potatoes were diverse. A single blight couldn't kill every species/strain because they were all different. So the little, emaciated looking Peruvian midget potatoes won the day.

The lesson here is that tradition and conservatism make a certain amount of sense if the risks (like starvation, or -- for a boxer -- getting beaten up and losing your "0") are high. Because you can never be QUITE sure whether that stupid thing that your stodgy coach taught you might have certain useful qualities that neither of you quite suspected. It might have entered the Great Boxing Tradition for a reason, after all.

 

Repetition and good form builds good habits, muscle memory and reflexes.....if the fighter is not working the bag different than how he normally fights it is good.....the bag is also a strength and conditioning drill I always felt the best bang for the money for a fighter is focus mitts