Is it just me or when you watch footage of old fighters like Kid Gavilan, Rocky Marciano, Foreman, Ali, Liston, Frazier - you feel like you're watching a lesser art performed? I mean, Gavilan was a beautiful fighter to watch, those crazy footwork moves and the Bolo punch were fantastic fun to watch - but put him in against fighters of this era and he'd get sparked in 5 rounds. Why? Because sportsmen get better at doing what they do. Every single other individual sport, this is true - records are constantly broken, performances constantly bettered. Team sport? The only reason people aren't bettering Ty Cobb's average is due to the sport being so much better, fielders being better, the pitching staff being of a much higher quality. People are blind if they think boxing doesn't come under this - take a look at MMA and how rapidly the old styles are being bettered by new fighters, new training regimes and new ways of winning, a prime version of Royce Gracie has just about as much chance of beating Anderson Silva as Rocky Marciano would have against Wladimir Klitschko. Every other sport where results are quantified by times and percentages understand this, boxing seems to have some romantic link to the past.
Muhammad Ali still has a better highlight reel than any other Heavyweight in history. He would dominate today with ease.
Conditioning? You mean the great 15 round fighters who seemingly had an infinite supply of energy? The guys that threw half as many shots, had half as many power in their shots and weren't killing themselves to make a weight they shouldn't be at? I'd take Calzaghe's conditioning over Bob Fosters anyday. Bull**** - he was used to being the tallest fighter and one of the few with decent skills. The rest were lumbering oafish unco-ordinated idiots like Foreman, Chuvalo and Liston - to a lesser degree Frazier. The best highlights of Muhammad Ali's career? When he was running his mouth about being the greatest. His in-ring performance paled in comparison.
Yup...when I watch Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, I think to myself, "these guys wouldn't do well against super-beasts like Ruslan Chagaev or Alexander Povetkin."
As usual, the old folk brigade chime in with "All the ATG heavyweights would win" Yeah - doesn't happen in any other sport except boxing right? Cause boxing nutrition, fight science, training, analysis and preparation hasn't improved in the time period that all others have - they were masters of the craft 50-60 years ago.
you must be a comedian i know plenty of people who are ignorant of the intricacies of the very sports they play seems like to me you're one of those.
You think because you box means you have more credibility when discussing the different generations in the sport? Ali fought many fighters who were bigger than he was, Terrel and Foreman too name two. Incidentally, he mangled and embarrassed the former, and knocked out the latter.
You killed your creditability when you said Kid Gavlian would have been sparked in 5 rounds by modern fighters.
I hear what your saying PugilisticPower, I watch alot of old fights myself. I got a ton of sports stations that throw old boxing fights on all the time, MSG is a great sports channel to watch late at night. I do feel the skills, power, and speed has improved over the years. Though the toughness and the conditioning of fighters of yester year are far better than the fighters we have today for the most part. You must remember, alot of top fighters had a day job to help make ends meet during tough times. Now top fighters of today can afford to fight twice a year and buy almost anything they want. Guys of yester year had that mentality of "Kill or be killed", something so few fighters had. Thats part of the reason why guys like Tyson and Hopkins will never be forgotten because their a throwback to the way fighters used to be. By the way, this excludes how I feel about todays Heavyweights. Who are just bigger and stronger, everything else fighters of past decades are better at overall
don't let burt sugar hear you, he'll have a heart attack! there is no way to prove how this generations would compare to others as unlike sprinting there is no way t prove it.