Past eras suffer from having absolutely no footage of one another to study pre-fight? That's a major bonus to a fighter willing to put the time towards doing it. You've got to imagine that when footage wasn't wildly available the only way to research an opponent would be talking to others who had previously fought him or extensive newspaper research. Neither might be viable considering fights were taken on shorter notice anyway. Thoughts?
Yes. They often traveled large distances to watch potential oponents fight or spar and payed inflated amouts for the services of their former oponents and sparring partners. I often smile to myself when people talk about how Joe Louis or another fighter did better in rematches. Often they didnt really know what they were up against until the opening bell rang.
Boxrec has gone a long way to help expose promoters who put up gross mismatches. If you went to a (in particular Duff) fight in the 80s/90s and the star man was fighting a unknown foreigner, his numbers were just made up....
wouldnt fighters in the old days been more involved with boxing and gone to more shows to watch fighters who could one day be an opponent
well yeah...I know he studied Dempsey, his son talked about it..how he saw that he could hit Dempsey with a right...of course Dempsey was heavyweight champion of the world, so his fights got filmed....