So you wouldn’t rate it if lomachenko went h2h with Crawford and lost a close decision, or went h2h with Canelo and lost a narrow decision? The guy is probably the best LW of all time pushing the best MW of all time to a close fight. It’s not as black and white as w/l.
I’ve seen all those guys fight. It’s like watching a guy with 1 year amateur xp over some bar room brawlers. I understand styles were different but the lateral footwork looks stiff, like he’s the first to employ some sort of lateral footwork so that gave him an advantage. Upright stance, gloves on his chest or stomach. C’mon man, you’re not being honest if you think these guys are up to even the 70s standard technically. In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. The first technicians remind me of the Gracie’s in MMA, dominant and had a clear advantage over the rest of the clueless folks, but could Gracie’s really compete with the Khabib or McGregor of today? This content is protected
The guard is low because there was a lot more grappling in the twenties. Dempsey is particularly adept in a clinch. But if you look past the lowered guard, you'll see that Gene Tunney has a great jab, accurate punching, timing, strength, speed, and throws every punch in the book. The footwork is different in the twenties, but that's efficient footwork nonetheless. It's not smooth and with a lot of gliding lateral movement. That sort of thing comes later with Ray Robinson, Willie Pastrano, and Ali popularizing it. But there's nothing wrong with the footwork they had in the 20s. You call it stiff, but Wlad and Vitali Klitschko were stiff and upright too. It's not smooth, but it's efficient. You watch Tunney, you watch Walker especially and they do this quick twitch skipping with a perfect economy of motion. They've always got great balance. They get in and out without getting hit. This content is protected These guys aren't punks either. They know what they are doing. Tunney is 71-1-4 and Gibbons is 96-4-4 in this video. That's not an accident. But nevertheless Tunney is hitting Gibbons 3 to 1. He bends at the waist and has good head movement. He counters and sets traps. If he were fighting today he would **** Kovalev and Bivol up.
Nope, just nope. There's a reason why the no.1 rule in boxing is to keep your hands up. A guy today would simple walk down with a high guard, or parry the jab as they walk in and knock that chin clean off with an overhand right. You simply don't stick your chin out like that unless you're in MMA and expecting a takedown. But hey, they learned. I boxed for over 10 years, I study boxing, I've actually studied old footage too, I just can't see it. I've seen all the breakdown videos of the old fight videos as to why it's different and how it's efficient, and there's some merit to it, but the eye test doesn't lie. Like we know when we see a good fighter, and we know when we see someone who's not developed fully technically. You can see it in Joshua, he's getting better, but you can tell he's not a guy schooled in boxing since he was 5, moves were stiff, the jab is hesistant, same with Wilder. Meanwhile someone like Fury who is properly schooled, looks a lot more fluent than the other 2. The 20's were too early, 60's is when it started to really get serious and probably peaked in the 80s. Tunney had 71-1-4 the same way Gracie whooped everyones ass. They had some semblance of skill in an era of bar room brawlers.