The actual skill level of Jim Braddock

I enjoy reznick's vids for entertainment purposes and have liked a number of them I don't particularly agree with because I appreciate the work put into them and the fact that I enjoyed the time I spent watching them. But that has no correlation to how closely I agree with the content. In many cases I don't.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't think my views are particularly perverse.

 

Mercer then, or Miller, or Sam Peter. Take your pick.

 

He was one of the hardest punchers of his era because his era wasn't particularly loaded with them. He wouldn't crack a top ten at any period of the last thirty years, IMO.

 

There's very little reason to believe that Braddock would have been a world-class heavyweight in Tua's era.

 

I am sorry but this is nonsense.

There are guys who can hit like a falling anvil in every era.

It is the one thing that you are always going to get in any era strong or weak.

 

Just as a sidebar, for the record, I don't think his Wylie counter-example works at all. Wylie makes very clean, well-edited videos with a bit of dramatic flair. All of that is obviously a huge part of his appeal. There have been any number of youtube channels that offer analysis every bit as insightful as Wylie's (more so even), that haven't enjoyed even a fraction of his popularity.

 

Lets focus on what we know they both did in their own eras, rather than engage in speculation about what they might have done in other eras.

 

No, there are clearly eras of stronger and lesser punchers. The 90s was loaded with great punchers. The 30s and 40s weren't.

Galento was one of the hardest punchers in an era which included Max Baer and Primo Carnera. That's hardly high praise.

 

Is that code for "let's pretend that every era was more or less equal"?

In his own era, David Tua knocked out three future and former lineal champions. Men who were both bigger and better skilled than Braddock. And he demonstrated ATG punching power and durability against plenty of adult-sized heavyweights. That's good enough for me.

 

So Galento was one of the hardest punchers in an era that included ATG punchers Max Baer and Joe Louis. That sounds like pretty high praise.

 

This is pure speculation on your part, because you have no way of comparing them.

Max Baer might have been the hardest puncher that ever lived, but it doesn't really matter either way.

There is no such thing as an era where the hardest puncher doesn't hit all that hard.

There never has been and there never will be.

Quality of eras varies, but power is always there.

 

Galento's power is extremely overrated on this forum. I think the posters here read that he knocked down Perfect Fighting Machine Joe Louis and their imaginations ran wild.

 

Not at all.

I just think that historical fact should carry more weight than unprovable speculation.

Braddock's win over Art Lasky, is better than anything that Tua ever accomplished on paper.

That is why I have to treat the claims made for him with some skepticism.

 

I think this is probably right, since I doubt modern weight training increases durability much. At least, I haven't seen any studies showing it does. If you can switch off the consciousness of 6'0"+, large-framed heavyweights with your punches, then you can probably do the same thing to those guys after they train with weights.

 

Neck training can help prevent concussions, but boxers have been doing that forever anyway.