We talk so much smack about cherry picking and fighters ages and how faded a fighter is. Fighters biological age and fighting primes vary so much I don't think you can really talk prime until their careers are finished/basically finished. Sometimes a fighter can go through a rough patch mid career and then go on a tear late. They might even get career best wins when they are supposedly long past prime. Billy Joe Saunders has looked like a scrub for a couple of years. Is he past his prime? If I was to predict his future I can't see him getting any more decent wins, but he should have mutiple losses already and his record is terribly inflated. Thats another issue for another day though, many fighters get gifts multiple times but if nobody cares about them then it goes under the radar. Its only fighters with a bit of buzz that go under the microscope.
Depends on wear and tear/lifestyle/weight cut/fighting style. Take Floyd for an example. Never went to war in the ring, lived the life (in terms of fitness!), probably walked around below 160 and fought cautiously
Age discrimination, it's Real, any chink in your armour will be tried against you. That's why I sonetimes like guys like Lucas Browne. It's almost guaranteed people told them you're too old, you've got no shot. People start boxing at four years old. Everyone is different though & some who start early may burnout from many factors
Take B-Hop for example....can you even pinpoint his prime? A lot of ppl would say when he beat Trinidad, but he was already 36 then and he went on to do great things another 12 or 13 years after that. Floyds a bit if the same way. I couldnt really say when his years were . He fought most of his biggest names and more dangerous opponents after 35, but most people agree he had a more aggressive style at the lower weights
I will get a lot of hate for this but outside the HW and CW divisions, most guys above 30 are on the slide
Lennox Lewis and Wlad were better fighters as they got older, their prime age was 34+. Mike Tyson obviously had a younger prime at 20-24 years old. It's all up to styles really.
I disagree. In his 20s he fought. It wasn't until his 30s that he did like many before him; Hopkins used to bang, Pernell Whitaker used to bang, but they developed a skillset that allowed them to depend on D more than offense. Against Hernandez He had to scrap to get the strap! 1st few seconds here shows Floyd getting dropped but Nady called it a slip, but same when Hernandez fell. The stereo-typed Mexican who cuts the ring off...forced Floyd to fight This content is protected NDou is one of those tough boxers whose record no longer bared that of a top fighter. going in 31-1 w/30kos. Back then this was a great matchup. Overtime we 4got how good Phillip was, though who lived through it remember! This content is protected His 1st fight @140..unlike Zab who used movement to eke out a SD over Corley saw little FLoyd move up go toe to toe. Even bled a lil bit, but this wasn't a boxing match. they fought toe to toe. Today we look at Corley's record and 4get at one point he was a solid boxer. This content is protected I didn't put the Corrales fight because that wasn't war just a one-sided affair with a bunch of kds for Floyd. Today's era has upped the age. Guys like JMM & Pacquiao banged in their late 30s. It seems 40 is the new 30!
Completely agree - that is the rule No doubt people will bring up the "exceptions to the rule". It needs to be said that just because there are few exceptions to the rule, this doesnt make the rule invalid. If the rule applies 90 times out of 100 it is still extremely valid. At HW the cut off where a HW is done is aged 37/38. Sometimes a poor lifestyle will cause the slide to be earlier than 30 in the other divisions in boxing (below HW)
Bigger guys tend to go on longer because the need for swift movement is less of a priority. They throw and take fewer punches too. At any weight below Super Middle I would say that you would need to be seriously talented to be operating successfully at top level past 32. Just for a bit of perspective, Sugar Ray Robinson fought former Middleweight Champion Terry Downes at 42 and took him the distance. It was only Robinson's 12th defeat in something like 175 professional fights nearly all of which were at World level.
