The old timers who boxed back in the days 30s and 40s, was the boxing culture far more better than nowdays? No internet, or any poisoning mobile phones. Training and exercising, working in field was the only thing they did. Rocky Marciano ran 7-10 miles every morning and walked 10-15 miles later in the day. Many fighters also conditioned themselves with woodcutting or using woods as weightlifting. Also losing a fight wasn't that big deal, there were many great boxers who had "50-20" record and still fought world title fights. Nowdays its build 32-0 record fighting journeymen and get payday. Boxing is always poor men and gentleman sport, but it feels its going to change to other route. Modern training methods and drugs are changing every sports.
Overall, it was just a bigger sport in the states. More participation, more fights, 2 recognized titles (and one guy usually had both titles) instead of 4+, less divisions. On the downside, it's not like you would be able to see all the good fights like you can now with TV. It was sleazy as hell then too.
Not for the fighters. Less money for a dangerous amount of fighting. Sparring more than is good for their brains. No proper medical protection at ringside a lot of times. And for some of the great black fighters it was a walking nightmare of injustice. But it's pretty awesome that you could have a world-class fight broadcast on a Wednesday night on free-to-air television in the States, yeah.
People back then walked around in greyscale, and had touch jobs next to their boxing careers. They couldn't train months for one fight because they fought multiple times in a single month. Real men, serious boks.
The only real difference was there was no doping or steroids. There was, but cannot be compared to today. Other than that, it's overrated nostalgia.
At the end of the day, a good fight is a good fight. I'd take the Toney - Jirov fight over most of the fights in the 30-60's. Same can be said about Foreman-Lyle, I'd pick that fight over most fights either held today or 75 years ago. Gatti-Ward the same and on it goes.
The pace and number of fights per year in the seventies (five to ten for major fighters was common) was reasonable, a compromise from earlier days and the current 1-3 defences /yr Yep. I remember Harry Carpenter embarrassing himself somewhat by being very surprised at the decision in Ali-Norton 1 which was broadcast live and free (except for the TV license fee) on BBC.
