Questions for Burt: Legends vs. the 90's

Great post. :good

 

yeah I know. As for knowing about the Carmine Vingo near death experience I actually had not heard about it until Burt said it here but I can be forgiven for that... I can tell you a little bit of maybe 300 plus boxers from the past but all I could have said about Vingo is that I had heard the name.

 

MaGoo and I have patched the little misunderstanding up since then, it's all water under the bridge now buddy. as for Bob he only fights for money anyway. It all started because I feel Burt is a great old chap. It's all good now but.

 

Your point about TV changing everything is so obvious I am astounded I had not realized this before, it makes more sense then avoiding with sugar and Fructose.... of course, TV... it was revolutionary in so many ways, it changed human culture dramatically, I know my games Rugby league and Cricket have had massive cuts in average crowds, hell a grand final in 1968 had like 120000 fans turn up, twice the capacity the SCG could hold but they came anyway, the next year TV beamed games live every week and ever since they struggle to get a crowd, yet still, TV has nothing on the live experience, actually attending one of the three most exciting sports on the planet for an NRL match to watch these incredible athletes do incredible feats in a modern gladiatorial contact sport for 80 minutes is breath taking, especially as its virtually non stop continual action and the big hits.... huge giants weighing often at 120 pounds and running at high speed and colliding, you can hear the thuds and feel it with your feet if you are near the sidelines... modern people are lazier and softer as a result too... It just had to end up with vast amounts of budding young fighters giving the game away... its sad really... in fact I have always advocated that great sport events NOT be available LIVE to people living within four hours drive to an event, they should have to wait a week before they see replays but now the internet has made all that impossible, hell I can now tune in with my computer to a rugby league game between the Ukraine and Latvia to see them play live and to also see that seventeen spectators a dog and two pigeons are actually attending.... LOL ain't the world getting weird old mate ?

 

I don't think we should read too much into an opinion, based on what someone saw 70 years ago!

I watched my first world champ, Emile Griffith, 53 years ago, when just a young lad... and to be honest, I don't remember anything about the fight (against Chris Christensen) itself. I remember being terribly impressed; but his style, the way he boxed - I don't recall any of that! But isn't that exactly what is imprinted in our minds many years later - how we FELT at the time we experienced certain things, rather than a clear, detailed recollection of what actually happened?

Also, as we have seen so many times, people tend to idolize the fighters they grew up with, so the opinion of oldtimers should probably be taken with a pinch of salt. I'm not saying Burt isn't being honest in his appraisal of the fighters he saw as a young man... but I don't think I'm out of line if I say, he's more than a little biased in favour of the boxers he watched in his youth!

 

Absolute majority of which either didn't turn pro or had not achieved anything much in the pro ranks, and therefore it's an irrelevant argument, really.

 

Another thing, according to boxrec stats annual number of bouts was at its highest in late 1920s-early 1930s, yet it was one of the worst periods in heavyweight history. In the UK they also had lots and lots of bouts, men like Len Wickwar and other boxers with hundreds of bouts, who didn't achieve anything much in their career. Many ATGs of the time proved to be phenoms very early in their careers, after 2-3 years of fighting.

 

Agreed.. Sometimes I can't remember the specifics of a fight I watched six months earlier let alone decades.

 

You have to appreciate what Burt says.

He follows boxing from the 30's I believe.

He was at the time when there were hundreds of pro fights every week in the US.

Now if you look at boxrec, you'll notice that there are very few fights in the USA per week, Argentine, Mexico, UK usually have more fights today.

Back in his youth boxing in the US was far more popular than it is now.

At 90s and even early 00s it was far more popular, too.

We had those televised fights on ESPN, Fox etc every week, today we only have few shows per year that are on HBO ans Showtime.

I think it's safe to say that in 40's there were more talented boxers because boxing was so much more popular than it's today, at least in the US.

Amateur boxing is another evidence - US team was always one of the best until 90's,

but today US amateurs aren't even competitive.

Yes Burt you're right, there were more boxing stars, more meaningful fights, more excitement in those days.

 

burt's points were correct.
Obviously a larger pool of contestants and few championships at the top makes quality of the competition rise.

 

As well as professional fights and amateur fights, the big boxing cities in America also had extensive 'bootleg' circuits, unlicensed fights that usually went unrecorded.
Some of the great fighters of the time, including Sugar Ray Robinson, used the bootleg circuit to pick up money and gain valuable experience.

 

R, thanks, but what I wouldn't give to be YOUR age AGAIN....

 

Oh, and how old were you when watching the Griffith fight ? it's one thing to forget a fight that may not have had many memorable moments that stick in the mind especially if under 18 years of age compared to a more eventful fight you saw at 23... really young people have their heads in the clouds so much of the time they don't take as much in but what you are suggesting is that Burt has a poor memory, I don't think that's correct... sure he can reinforce some memory by reading back about the fight or film of it but we tend to compartmentalize things that mattered to us. Now an Ike Williams in action often had great action and stuff that sticks in the mind, I still vividly remember Holmes slaughtering Gerry ****ey, certainly not round for round but hell Holmes looked good and ****ey really had little to offer... I have never watched the fight again since. I remember quite a few Fenech fights well and some I have revisited and it was just as I remember. I saw Ali vs Norton but being like 12 years old I didn't pay attention all I remember is some older blokes complaining that they thought Norton won, my dad did I know that. Hell we had boxing on TV in the late 60's and early 70's every week and it was fightnight and I recall images, I remember Tony Mundine lookin real sharp but again I payed attention for a minute here... a minute there, I saw hector Thompson too but remember nothing about it, might have been a boring fight or maybe I wanted to read a comic.. point being I was like 7 or 6 years old but I remember most of what I saw as an adult. I would be very surprised myself if the greats of the 40's were not in fact at least nearly twice as good as the best fighters of the 90's with an exception or too, boxing had so many more fights going on before TV came along. Give Burt some respect, you deserve some too.

 

Thanks Greg. To think that I talk highly of the top fighters of the 1940s and 1950s because I am on old fuddy duddy and I can not be objective is false. I had many boxing neighbors in my youth who were good fighters with 60-80 fights under their belts ,were tough and experienced and I never bring these worthy guys up as top fighters of those times. I talk about the great fighters of those days ,I saw ringside whose talents were praised by great boxing minds of those days and after. Not to be redundant but guys like Ray Robinson, Ike Williams, willie Pep, Kid Gavilan, Sandy Saddler, Marcel Cerdan, Billy Graham,
Jake LaMotta, Rocky Marciano, Rocky Graziano, BEAU JACK, Sammy Angott,
Bummy Davis, Fritzie Zivic. Jimmy Bivins etc, guys who fought often under the
tutelage of great fulltime trainers who knew the ropes of boxing. These guys fought often 10-20 times a year and were full time fighters. So why would I not
remember their great skills today ? I have been weened on boxing since a very young boy and I don't have to impress anyone to bolster my ego...
One other thing- there are many fighters of a few years ago and today that would fit in very nicely with the talented guys of my youth such as Duran, Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Alexis Argello [one of my favorites], GGG, YES GGG,
Sergei Kovalev, Dave Sands [terrific] and numerous other modern fighters. So
to think that I , though no spring chicken can not separate nostalgia from objective observation is false and naïve...cheers G.