Marciano (and his predecessors) would probably get KTFO today

I often read claims like: the HW division is so poor that any decent boxer fighting x years ago would easily dominate today.

I disagree. To be precise, I'm making one claim:
If you literally had a time machine, transported the best guys fighting 100 or 80 (or even 50) years ago and had them fight the current best boxers (straight away) most likely the old champions would not be competitive at all.

Nb. I'm NOT saying that if you gave the old guys time to train today, the gap would remain as big.


I think so, because training techniques have made massive advances in the meantime. If you look at the athletic records and compare those a 100 years ago to the ones today, the gaps are enormous:

1500m:
1900 4:09 John Bray
Today 3:26 Hicham El Guerrouj

Marathon:
1898 2:58:50 Spiridon Louis
Today 2:03:59 Haile Gebrselassie

So, if you took the old athletic champs and allowed them to race today, they would get owned. While not directly comparable, I think the same applies to boxers. The ones today are faster, stronger and have better stamina. You could argue that a 12rd fight is not dissimilar to running a marathon (in terms of sheer exertion) and hence, given the differences above, the best guys today would most likely (bar an unlucky punch) easily clean-up their divisions if teleported back in time...

If you disagree, please state why.

EDIT: I've slightly changed my mind - for the latest on my thinking (basically a summary of the argument in this thread) check out
http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2872616&posted=1#post2872616

 

Thanks for your comments. Speed was at a premium also in athletics. Yet the guys were objectively a lot slower. And conditioning was key when you were running marathons - yet relative to those today, past runners were poorly conditioned...

The reason these differences are not so apparent is because guys like Louis fought similarly slow and poorly conditioned fighters, who would have no place in today's professional boxing (I'm pushing the argument a bit, I realise). Skills I don't think have changed that much, so I guess the fights could be close in the first rounds (differences in short distance runs are relatively smaller) - but then the differences in class would become apparent, I think.

 

I pretty much agree with your first para. But what are 'skills'? We can try to brake it down a bit, to try and figure out how much progress has been made... To me 'skills' are:
-timing
-hand / eye coordination
-balance
-speed
-power
-stamina
-ability to take a punch

In some of these categories (timing, balance), I agree, we probably haven't seen that much progress. However, I think you can argue that stuff like speed / power / stamina have improved massively. So then the question is what relative balance of skills do you need to be a boxing champ and how important are the skills that have improved... I think they are absolutely crucial - hence the (slightly provocative) title of this thread.

 

Ok. Thanks for these. Let me try and take your arguments one by one.

The fact that those guys fought and sparred a lot more doesn't necessarily make them better fighters. In fact, I think you can argue that the opposite is the case - i.e. similarly as 'over-training' is not great for increasing performance, so is 'over-fighting' for making you a better boxer. Why do I say that? Well given the benefits of getting to the 'top' in any sport, if fighting a lot (more than is currently done, say) gave you an edge, people would be doing it. By the same token that people resort to doping - even though it is illegal and can massively increase the probability of heart failure (some sprinters and cyclists die pretty young...).

I actually think this argument works against you. Again, if feinting was good - we'd see boxers who faint a lot, in the top echelons of the sport. The fact that they're not very numerous - tells you a lot about the usefulness of feinting...

I think this is a good and valid argument. Two-point come back.

Many of the old boxers were not professionals and had day jobs. Even if some of the top ones were, their victories came against (many) non-professionals.This makes the comparison more relevant (if not entirely valid).

Secondly, while the gaps would be smaller, they would still be there even if we compared the top professional athletes 70 years ago with those today...

I don't disagree with what you say. Boxing is affected by an enormous amount of factors, for sure. Progress has been made along many more dimensions than just running - that was simply one example. People are stronger - that's undeniable and can be measured (again I could quote olympic records... - though these are likely to be contaminated by doping).

As to people not getting braver, even that is debatable. Why? Well there are now more than three times as many people alive than there were in 1900. If you choose the bravest guy from a group of 10 people odds are he will be less brave than the bravest guy from a group of 30 people... If boxing attracts the fittest and bravest then again, the larger pool could well mean that the average level of these traits has gone up as well.

So what I tried to argue is training more often and harder doesn't necessarily make you a better boxer. Training smarter does - which is why the old training regimes have, to a large extent, been abandoned (risk of overtraining and injury is massive to begin with). So whose argument is illogical and unreasonable now?