The margin of error with hand timed results pales in comparison with the difference that synthetic tracks and modern shoes make. Handtimed results could've been worse for the runners, where the time keeper was too late. However, nobody is running better on dirt with spikes.
He may not have had much left after his journeymen days and long contendership. He was at the very least 74 fights into his career, a career that was not coddled and expertly guided. The remainder of his career was a huge fall off in results. Take Bowe, whose career was very carefully crafted, and he was done at 28 and 39 fights in. Frazier was done at that age. Dempsey himself was done at 32. We can go on. In regards to Langford, Wills fought him 15 times before 1920.
Langford was past prime for all their fights, with a lot more mileage on the clock. Bad example on your part. As for Wills not being coddled I can see at least 45 gimmees on his resume! That's over half his entire record! Wills was fighting every 3 months or so he was nothing like Dempsey who had been out for 3 years! Bowe had no discipline and gorged himself between fights. Wills was a health nut who neither drank ,smoked, or ate unhealthily. Two more bad comparisons on your part.
I've competed under all the conditions you listed above. Yes, modern tracks help but Bob Hayes still blasted a 10.06 on a sh*try Tokyo track in a lane 1 that was shredded by 5000 meter runners. And i have seen and benefited from some horrible hand timing. All that said Dempsey looks fast. I have no problem believing that he could pick them up and put them down. Oddly enough, Corrie Sanders was a really fast guy, especially for his size.
Its a bad example to suggest that 22 fights with Sam Langford over a period might be detrimental to one's physical state? And to think everyone tells me the mankiller Fred Fulton was such a beast based on his destruction of Langford in 1917? James Toney ate like a pig, did no roadworks and lasted quite a while. I hear he's heavyweight champ again.
"a much bigger player eating a face full of Brown hip" The player is Sam Huff who was 6' 1" and 230 lbs. He was about the same size as Brown. Huff at 230 was by 12 lbs. the heaviest of the Giant linebackers in 1958. They averaged 218 as a group to Brown's 230. I just looked up the 2016 New England roster and Freeney is given as 255, Ninkovich at 260, and Hightower at 265. Those guys are heavier than anyone but Rosey Grier on the 1958 Giant defense. Things have changed a great deal in the NFL. For one thing, in Brown's day a back could wear down the defense as the roster was only 33 or so players. Today the rosters are in the 50's, so teams can keep fresh defensive players on the field. That takes a big edge away from a power back. Brown was a great athlete and would do all right today, but I don't think he would dominate the way he did in his own era. By the way, I think the best athletes on the offense these days are generally the receivers. Makes sense, as they are relatively less likely to be hurt.
"why is it that much smaller men in his time, could never catch him" Being small doesn't make one fast. Do you have evidence that the backs in those days were as fast as modern defensive backs. Teams now seek speed and draft for speed. It would be really hard to judge, but watching films it seems the average speed of NFL players is greater than it was decades ago. None of the recent backs you mention match Brown in average yards per carry. So in a way they aren't as good as he was in the context of time and place. "Why aren't they dominating their own era?" Competition. The higher the level of talent overall, the harder for the greatest player to stand out.
This is straw. Who said that today's centers would be too big or too strong or too fast for Wilt to compete against??? To the contrary, I chose Wilt specifically because he had the physical attributes necessary to compete in today's league. Not sure how you're confused about this. My argument was simply that Wilt wouldn't approach being a 50ppg/27rpg Juggernaut in today's NBA. Wilt was an extraordinary athlete, and had the physical tools to be a star in any era. Though I missed his career in real life, I've been a fan since childhood, thanks to my dad. I read two of his autobiographies and I've seen countless youtube clips, including the ones you just posted. I've raved about his physical athleticism on this forum and possibly posted some of those very same clips. His athleticism is not in question, so the long passage you wrote about it is beside the point (of our disagreement). I never said that he "only beat up on smaller men." This is inaccurate. But that being said, it's telling some of the handpicked centers you describe as "not small" include 6'7 Wes Unseld and 6'9 Willis Reed!! The 6'9ish Bill Russell was also extremely undersized by today's standards. And I'm confused by your reference to Kareem. A younger man, Kareem put up significantly better numbers than Wilt in their head to head match-ups. Nothing about Wilt's performances against Kareem-- who was never known as an ATG defender -- supports your argument. BTW, you seem to be ignoring the fact that Wilt would have to compete not just against individual centers but against teams full of some of the most athletically gifted men on the planet. He'd be dealing with weakside help from strong, athletic, long-armed 6'10+ 230-260lb power forwards on a regular basis. He'd be double-teamed by rangy 6'3 point guards with track star speed and 6'6 shooting guards. This is a very, very important difference between today's NBA and Wilt's league 50 years ago. No, the NBA truly gets the best of the best today, and on a global scale. No comparison whatsoever. Salaries have skyrocketed since Wilt's day. The league's fame has increased exponentially, across the world. Basketball is a far, far more popular sport than it was in the 1950s and 1960s, and the stakes of identifying and recruiting the best potential players have never been higher. Hence, the specialized training and organized ball that the most promising children receive has changed dramatically since Wilt's day (and likely your day, whenever you grew up). Athletically promising children around the world are far more likely to find their way to basketball then they were in Wilt's era, and the gatekeepers are more likely to identify and reward those who have talent. The results are evident to anyone who contrasts a 2017 roster with a 1962 roster. PS -- On the flip side, there are even examples of guys in Wilt's era who allegedly refused (Pee Wee Kirkland) or almost refused (Bob Cousy) to pursue NBA careers because it didn't pay enough money. No other way to address this then to say that I think you're greatly exaggerating the conditions that Wilt faced during his career. We can watch the available footage of Wilt's games for ourselves and see that he was not continuously being physically abused or chased around the court and triple-teamed away from the ball, etc. In any case, I would argue that any disadvantages that Wilt suffered on this front relative to players in today's NBA were far outweighed by the benefits of playing against such athletically inferior competition.
Ah, that is Sam Huff. Good catch! Despite this incorrect exaggeration it is still a marvelous display of his power, to hit a guy he couldn't even see coming behind him with his hip, and leaving him limp, all while dealing with other defenders in front of him, and racing to the endzone. This isn't a normal display of running the ball, it's extraordinary. And if it were a modern 230lb LB, which is now the lower end of the spectrum, they'd go flying all the same. Maybe a 250lb LB would've simply fell instead of going limp. Negligible enough when talking about someone like Jim Browns power, speed, and explosiveness. In 65, Brown was playing with people like Butkus who was 245lb. Linebackers have gotten bigger by 10-30lb on average. But that's not going to slow Browns game. DBacks are the same size, so they're equally screwed. The D line are full of super monsters now, but Brown would enjoy a bigger O line as well. Jim Brown wasn't the best because he was bigger than others on the field. It's silly to say that a 230lb Halfback was the magic solution. Just as silly as it is to think that today, a 250lb HB would be the magic solution. There have been really big HBs in recent years who couldn't use their size advantage to overcome the defense. So that hypothesis doesn't hold up. Jim Brown was great because of many attributes, his size being just one. He seems to contribute his success to his stamina, toughness, and his psyche. Walter Payton was small. Barry Sanders was TINY. He came decades after Brown, and dominated. Adrian Peterson is fast power back like Jim Brown was. He is 10 pounds lighter, and an inch shorter than Jim Brown was in 1960. When he is healthy, does he seem to have issues being a 217lb power back in the modern NFL? Is he not capable of trucking bigger guys, and making them pay for tackling him?
Tony Dorsett & O. J. Simpson ran the hundred in 9.57 in the superstars competition. That is quite a bit faster than Brown. There is a famous play in which Dorsett broke loose but was caught by Darrell Green short of the end zone. Bo Jackson was also caught by a defensive back on film. I remember a coach commenting that Green catching Dorsett marked a turning point in NFL history with the best athletes now going more often to the defense. This whole speed question is relative. Is a jackrabbit fast? Of course. Will it outrun a dog? Yes. But could it outrun a cheetah?
You have no idea what most people in basketball would agree with. Your wilingness to wax authoritatively about topics you know nothing about is pretty hilarious. You're not fooling anyone though! That was random but yeah, I think that a 6'0 welterweight with Iverson's toughness, speed, agility, hand-eye coordination and athleticism would be a very big deal to many boxing coaches. Conversely, basketball coaches see 6'3 prospects who are significantly faster than and more athletic than Ali quite often.
Just to annoy the Brits here (if they aren't annoyed enough today)... Orenthal James posted a 10.3 100 meters (9.2 100yds) and was on the world record setting 400 meter relay team at USC. And track was an afterthought to him. For whatever unjust accusations you can hurl at him, he was the real deal as supreme athlete. Darrel Green posted a 10.01 FAT 100 meters. Again, the real deal. And he kept it up until his late 30's when he was still the fastest guy on the Skins. He pursued a Willsian lifestyle.
He didnt have 22 fights with Langford ,it was 17! I've already told you that. What they tell you about Fulton is he irreparably damaged Langford's optic nerve and left him blind in one eye. Toney had 92 fights.Langford had that many by the time he was 26!
