Were old school boxers tougher because many of them cross trained in wrestling?

Mike Gibbons was an outstanding wrestler before he was a boxer.
Also Brusa was a wrestler and incorperated a lot of defensive turns and twists in Monzons game which is why he was always on balance.

 

Could be. Usyk was practicing Judo and I think catch wrestling before he was a boxer, so there could be something to that theory.

 

Wrestling training is definitely a massive compliment to boxing. Bar old time greats, Usyk and Crawford are currently great wrestlers.

 

I guess so,olds school boxers had very good clinch game,so wrestling must be pretty important for them.

Not to mention the golden age of the bare knuckle era,most boxing matches had a lot of wrestling based movements and strategy.

 

Ahaha no they’re not tougher because they wrestled, most grapplers not in Europe (BJJ) tend to be sort of nerdy and couldn’t cut it in striking, it’s better for a 1v1 but let’s face it we all wanna be Bruce Lee LOL - PERHAPS in Crawford’s case he got his mindset from wrestling practice in High School, even at the lowest level it’s a grind.

 

“Great” Wrestlers ? I didn’t think so? Did I miss them winning an Olympic medal or something?

 

They were tougher because they FOUGHT...and they fought often. You didn't see guys coming into the ring looking like Tyson Fury! They worked their asses off. Tough times make tough men!

 

Tony Galento being the prime example. The epitome of not looking like that.

 

Tough time! these men were often more concerned about just eating than fighting once a year.

 

Imagine Dempsey with the more modern training fighters have today. Jesus, that'd be scary.

 

Idk but I found this which is pretty cool.

This content is protected

 

I find it hard to believe, that out-of-shape boxers is something, that is restricted to this era!

Surely It's more likely, that throughout history there have been a mixture of top-tuned fighters... and those that weren't quite as serious about their conditioning. Does anyone really think, that 100 years ago there were no overweight, fat boxers - and that this is something we only see in more recent times?

 

Jewish Adesanya vs Darius Du Plessis,1890 colorized