Stop comparing the fighters of the past to present day fighters!

post is very true...it annoys me how in fantasy matchups....even though they are fantasy...it seems like some past fighters will never lose to some of todays fighters.....when in reality i think all the matchups are great and competitive with even splits...50/50 with a lot of fights but you'll get some people who come out and say just outlandish results.

 

Comparisons to other sports are ridiculous. The advantage conferred by other sports from new training techniques is generally in the areas of additional size, and strength. Boxing has weightclasses and punching power has little to do with raw strength. Boxing technique has not changed appreciably since the sport hit the modern era around the 30's. Guys have been throwing the same punches, in the same way, for about 80 years.

In basketball being a bigger stronger guy means that you have an advantage over the smaller guys on the court. In boxing it means you get bumped up into a higher weightclass against other naturally big guys. This evens out a lot of the benefit you might see from modern nutrition and strength training routines. The best training for boxing is boxing, and fighters from previous generations did that much more than they do these days.

I firmly believe that anyone who thinks that the modern era produces more skilled boxers, or even more fit boxers, hasn't watched film or Louis, or Pep, or Locche, or Patterson. Those guys, and many others, were every bit as talented, strong, and fit as the guys fighting now.

The heavyweight division is a bit different since the absolute size differential can be quite large there so the benefits of modern nutrition, and the simple ease of getting enough food to sustain a huge frame, accounts for some of the very very large heavyweights we see today. But they are certainly less skilled than many of their old-time counterparts. They're just so much bigger that it wouldn't matter.