The biggest advantage modern fighters have over old time fighters

I agree, I believe Schmeling was one of the first boxers to successfully use fight films to his advantage in the first Louis fight.

 

PEDs

 

You could well be right.

 

PEDs and better childhood nutrition

 

I agree greater access to film is an advantage, but more of an advantage in selecting appropriate strategies for individual fights, than for improving technique, imo. I think training has a bigger impact on improving fighters technique than observing footage.

Either way, there are people, like you, who believe the technique of boxers today is typically superior of those to, for example, the 1940's, when footage was far less available and accessible. Other people will disagree and argue the technique of fighters of the 1940's were superior. Either way, it's subjective.

The meaning of the "PE" in PEDs, is not subjective. There’s a shared understanding as to what those two words mean.

 

All of the things mentioned are significant, don’t think you can do just one.

 

Just out of curiousity...do you think that Duran invented what he was doing? Or was he taught by Freddie Brown, who was relying on what he had seen over years in boxing? Do you think that Toney was the originator of rolling right hands off the shoulder/ Or was it being taught in gyms for decades by guys that had seen it done and passed it on? Wasn't Eddie Futch teaching guys to dip inside a right hand and counter with an uppercut back in the 1940s, and he will say that he learned it from somebody else.
Slipping inside a jab and throwing a hook is basic boxing and has been forever; it is in boxing manuals written in the late teens of the last century. Joe Louis was throwing check hooks in the 30s- he learned it from Blackburn who certainly didn't invent it. Nothing coming out of the Berinstain gym is original; he was an acolyte of Cuyo Hernandez and studied at his feet for many years. The tap head power hook to the body is not new; it was taught to me in the 70s and the man that taught it to me learned it somewhere. Missing the right hand and using that arm to hold an opponent in place for a hook to the liver is a very old school move- Arguello did it for years and he learned it in a gym from somebody that saw somebody else do it.
Not a single one of those things is a product of the video age. Every one of them has been a staple for decades, passed on from trainer to fighter, seen by other guys and spread across gyms everywhere. Just because you didn't know about it until recently doesn't mean that it wasn't there.

 

They wouldn’t be a hundred times more knowledgeable just by watching film footage.

 

But fighters were using all of those moves before film. You think James Toney invented the shoulder roll, lol?

I’d be surprised if even one world-class fighter picked up something on YouTube and came to absolutely master it just from watching film. Like with no input from a coach to refine it … just watched on YouTube and tried it and then became great at it.

Most of the guys breaking down film on YouTube have at best a half-assed understanding of what they’re watching and explaining. They think they’re experts and they talk like experts, but they couldn’t walk into a gym and show someone how to do it well. They don’t understand the subtleties involved, the way foot placement forces the opponent to stay in the wheelhouse, etc. I’ve watched some and LOL’d at how little they understood what they were talking about.

I’m sure some get it right, too, but how is a fighter supposed to discern which ones do and which ones don’t? They can also learn utter horse manure from YouTube and think they’re learning something that is going to help them when it could, instead, hurt them (or get them hurt).

And if you can learn how to infight like Roberto Duran from watching Duran … where are all the guys who can infight like Roberto Duran? Because I must be missing them.

Film has its place. It’s great for scouting (including self-scouting — showing a fighter how he’s dropping one hand and lifting his chin while he’s throwing the other is a great tool because he can actually SEE it) and for getting ideas of how to approach various aspects of the sport (this guy moves his head that way, maybe I’ll try it; that guy does it a different way, let’s see how that works, etc.).

But if you think a tall skinny guy can watch Thomas Hearns and that’s going to make him become Thomas Hearns … where are all the new Thomas Hearnses and Sugar Ray Robinsons who leaned from YouTube how to fight like the masters? How come other short, stocky heavyweights aren’t Mike Tyson?

 

Thank you G. Someone who know boxing techniques started
WELL before the age of the internet.......

 

Besides the chemicals, which I don't know if they are an advantage at all (an advantage for the boxer's health), there are advantages in the rules. I don't know how modern boxers would react if the rules allowed beating; the kind of beating Dempsey used to beat Willard. There are advantages to the combat rules IMO.

 

@greynotsoold @Saintpat great posts.