''We don't want to admit it, but athletes gets better'' ...& Mike Tyson Mysteries

I'm talking top level fighters.

Do some research.

They learned their craft in busier gyms, where there was more competition per weight class.

Their lives were completely different.

How many out of shape fighters were they back then?

How many gassed early?

They were generally fitter, because they spent more time between the ropes.

There's guys today that struggle to do 12 rounds.

 

Wow! Are you that dense? Wlad is prime for prime 4 inches taller, 30 to 35 pounds heavier and Ali as he admitted in many interviews lacked punching power. He talked openly about his envy for big punchers like Foreman who could end a fight with one punch. Wlad is much taller, heavier, stronger than Ali and has two-fisted punching power. The fight would be a one-sided bloodbath. Every powerful punch Wlad lands hurts Ali. It would be like a battleship up against a destroyer. You probably know nothing of naval warfare and simple basic training would make you pee yourself. I'll explain, Wlad is the battleship, bigger with more firepower, Ali is the destroyer, got speed but nine out of ten times is crushed at sea by the bigger, stronger ship. Wlad is the modern heavyweight athlete Mike Tyson was talking about...bigger, stronger, better trained and smarter. Argue with Mike. You bore me.

 

Athletes do get better, but that does not mean that the skills level is better.
While Athletes have gotten stronger and faster, their skill level has gone down in place Athleticism.

It is my belief, because there is so much emphasis on Bigger, stronger, faster athletes, highly skilled fighters like Hopkins are able to stay around much longer and give the impression they are greater then they are. Only because the lack of skill level of todays fighter.

 

If you are basing your evaluation on the entirety of his career like you say and not the formative losses than you would naturally come to the conclusion that he is one of the best HWs in history. You say you are basing it on his entire career but most of your criticisms stem from the extremely small sample size of those 3 losses.

He wasn't knocked out 3 times. All 3 were TKO's(fight ending on his feet), 2 of them were fights that he was dominating every single winning until he fatigued.

In the case of Corrie Sanders, none of the other great HWs that have been mentioned have ever in their careers fought a murderous punching southpaw with lightning quick hands like him. If given the opportunity Sanders was fully capable of doing the same thing to any of them. I'm not saying that would happen but it could definitely happen.

Joe Louis was outboxed and KO'd by a past prime Max Schemling, Muhammad Ali was KO'd by Henry Cooper(Dundee admitted to cutting Ali's gloves to give him time to recover and they gave him smelling salts which were illegal under British boxing rules), Lennox Lewis was TKO'd by Oliver McCall...

Klitschko's losses to Purrity, Sanders and Brewster are not the proof of Wladimir's limitedness but the reason why he has become so dominant now. Like a select few greats, he learned and improved from his mistakes and came back better than ever.

He didn't go life and death with Sam Peter. That is a convenient lie that I have seen many ppl often repeating. He won 10 out of the 12 rounds, every round besides the ones he was knocked down in. First of all Sam Peter was a very good fighter. He had many good assets at his disposal. He was primed and undefeated. Physically very big,incredibly strong(only man I have ever seen out muscling Wlad) a powerful left jab, huge puncher, concrete jaw and good stamina. It was a fight in which Wladimir proved to the boxing world that he could handle adversity. He showed great recovery and heart in that fight. It was the perfect type of fight to have after the Brewster fight and it showed that he wanted to fight the best, most dangerous fighters and not look for soft touches.

He hasn't been fighting poor opposition in title fights, that's just a flat out lie. Relative to the opposition that previous champion have fought in title fights Klitschko ranks among the best in history. He's taken on every style and dominated.

I wouldn't diminish Lewis' chances against Wladimir, I previously stated that is a guy that would give him a lot of problems. That fight could go either way. All depends on who can establish dominance with the jab.

Bowe as we saw in his two fights with Golota and second fight with Holyfield had very little ability to handle a consistent jab. Against a smaller opponent like Holyfield who he could physically mug and out strength he could work his advantages but this didn't work at all against the big and strong Golota. He also had a porous defence coupled a terrible habit to throw a big looping telegraphed right hand. Klitschko who possess one of the greatest jabs in the history of the division would blind Bowe with his jab and have a right cross coming a fraction of a second after before his brain could register the punch was coming, he would be hit. Bowe's rough work on the inside would be shut down by the bigger and stronger Klitschko just like it was shut down against Golota. When Bowe commits to his big looping right hand, Klitschko will catch him with his straight right that is much faster. Straight punches always land before big looping shots.

As seen throughout Holyfield's great career, he always had problems with a talented SHWs. He was 1-4 against the talented SHWs he fought in this 90's period in Bowe and Lewis. Being a blown up CW he had problems against these naturally much bigger men. Like Bowe Holyfield had problems with HWs who stuck to the jab. I would see a Holyfield W. Klitschko fight being much like his fight with Lewis. Lewis had a remarkably easy time just keep Holyfield on the end of his jab and keeping an arms lengths distance for the duration of the fight.
I see a hypothetical fight between Klitschko and Holyfield to play out much like that, with Klitschko winning a comprehensive UD or scoring a late stoppage victory.

Holmes was a great fighter but he was far past it by the 90s. Who did he beat in that time period? A green Mercer who still had yet to fully learn his craft and that's it. In all of his other big fights in the 90s he lost. His jab was still good but his work rate was poor and he would take rounds off in fights. Holmes never in his career fought a super talented athletic SHW like Klitschko who could match and even surpass his jab for speed, power and accuracy.
This version of Holmes I see Wlad beating without much difficultly on points.

Douglas I believe was a one night aberration against a fighter that he had a great physical and stylistic advantage over(forgetting accomplishments and reputation). I wouldn't trust Douglas to ever get into great condition necessary to compete with Klitschko. He couldn't get up for his massive title bout against Holyfield.
If we were to imagine that Douglas would actually get up off his lazy rear and came in shape I don't think he would have the success he had against Tyson. The obvious difference would be the size disparity. Tyson was 5 inches shorter and 11 pounds lighter than Douglas. Against Klitschko he would be 3 inches shorter and approximately 12 pounds lighter or so. Another reason would be that Klitschko never in his career had problems with fighters like Douglas, the featherfisted stink and runners who rely on movement and punch volume like a Eddie Chambers or Chris Byrd. Douglas falls quite nicely into this mould, he had a paltry 54% KO rate in his career and was a fighter who relied on punch volume to win rounds and wear his opponents out. As seen in the Tucker fight, Douglas was getting tagged frequently by Tucker's jab and left hook. Wlad bread and butter is throwing the jab and disguising a left hook after it. This would prove effective against Douglas.
Douglas also had a questionable mandible being KO'd and TKO'd many times throughout his career to fighters like David Bey(46% KO), Mike White, Tony Tucker, Evander Holyfield(51% KO), Louis Monaco and Lou Savarese. I believe Klitschko knocks Buster Douglas out mid rounds.

 

You postulated that the reason that these old timers are in better shape was because they were fighting so frequently. Regardless if they are low or high level fighters, based on your assertion shouldn't those fighters like a Travis Fulton who compete many times more then their less ring active contemporaries should be in much better physical condition? Clearly this is not the case. In the case of Travis Fulton and most of these other guys with hundred of fights, the reason were getting in the ring so often was because their pay for fights was so low.
Fighters learn and train in the gym not in the ring. Those fancy 10-12 training camps that you alluded to are for precisely that purpose. They are in there training, honing skills, learning from coaches, getting in shape with state of the art strength and conditioning equipment and supplements that were not available to the old timers.

Many of them were out of shape. An example would be the title contender from the 30's Tony Galento, who was a 5''9 butterball who weighed 240 pounds. Galento did next to no sparring and before fights would indulged in a diet that consisted of a giant bowl of pasta with meatballs and beer. Galento had 112 bouts in his career, fighting quite often. Shouldn't such a ring active like Galento be a shining example of fitness?

Many were small, non muscular, neglected weight training or any rigorous strength and conditioning programs and smoked. Accordingly many wouldn't have an optimal aerobic capacity. Like I said before like the fat Sullivan who managed to box for 75 rounds, these guys just paced themselves to fight for a longer period and increased bout length is not a clear indication of fitness.

There wasn't more competition, there was simply more parity. There wasn't a single force in the HW division that was consistently mowing through title challengers. If Ali was a powerpunching uberboxer like Klitschko and not having all those tough fights and close decisions but just running through all the title challengers he faced, I'm sure that his era would be deemed weak. Some of his opponents have made their legacies off of beating him like Joe Frazier and Ken Norton. If Ali had instead of losing to Frazier in their first meeting had knocked him out in 5-6 rounds of one sided domination would Joe Frazier have been considered a weak opponent? If Ali had instead of getting his jaw broken by Norton and arguably losing 3 times to him had beaten him to a bloody pulp in there first meeting would Ken Norton be remembered as an ex marine with a questionable mandible(like he was before facing Ali)?

 

bob beamans jump was in the thin air of mexico city.

 

Wlad couldn't knock out glass chinned Haye, yet he's going to destroy Ali.......

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Based on what exactly, you assume Haye has a glass chin? Show proofs, i'm genuinely curious. Haye may have glass balls, but surely not a weak chin.

But i already know the answer. The thompson fight.
A fight at cruiserweight, were he was weight cut, and were he gassed badly throwing everything but the kitchen sink for rounds.
A fight in wich he got hit bit tons of heavy blows, for rounds.

And he was still on his feet, and taunting thompson, when the referee stopped the fight. A legit stoppage, because he was taking a lot of unnecessary punishment and his gas tank was completely depleted, but still, not a ko.

Apart from that, he has been hit with every kind of blows without ever showing problems or jelly legs. He has a style, crouched low and moving a lot, that sometimes caused him to fall in tense exchanges. But he was never rocked.

The second excuse wich is used to claim a glass chin, is the fact he fights really cautious and defense first.

If that was a legit reasoning, then Floyd Mayweather, Andre Ward, Hopkins and all the others should have disgustingly glass mandibles.
Is this what you are trying to claim?

Oh and by the way, Ali got knoccked unconscious by a disgusting skinny fat 6'0,

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:adminbum Henry Cooper.



Knoccked down repeatedly by a 205 lbs hanging-bellied frazier.

Ali would barely be a sparring partner today.

 

He didn't stop him because Haye sacrificed any chance of victory by running for 12 rounds so he could avoid getting brutally knocked out.

 

jab, your posts are so full of rubbish, its freaky you then accuse the other of lying.

you are on ignore I cant stomach your double lies anymore.

 

pot, meet kettle...

 

Everybody knows it was. But even if it was at sea level it would be much better than the best jump this year. And many world records from 80s have not been broken yet and probably wont anytime soon.

 

watch any sport from twenty or more years ago. they look like they are in slow motion, compared to the same sports today.

 

watch any sport from the 1910s, they look like they are on speed crack coktails.

 

So how do you explain that results were better in many sports in 1980s than they are now?