what is the difference between the past greats and the modern greats

It'd be really nice if we could go a full week without some ill-advised clown stumbling in and presenting the exact same half-assed argument that's already been disected umpteen times. It really would.

 

Past greats are either old or dead. Modern greats are still alive and healthy.

 

Nothing, there is no differance at all. We seem to romaniticize the past so boxers from the past seem better to us.

 

Wow, quite an observation there holmes :think, though I bet you their are some esb posters hear that will even argue that with u.

 

Biggest difference between today and yesteryear is earlier weigh-ins and the amount of weight fighters gain before they get into the ring.

I believe Duran and Leonard were still right around 147 when they stepped into the ring in Montreal -- certainly both below 150. No IVs or anything like that.

Today, a welter may make 147 and get into the ring at 160-plus.

I don't think it's healthy, but some of the guys of yesteryear would get blown out early by bigger, stronger guys who make weight and then gain it these days. And some of them would ride out the first few rounds and completely destroy these modern balloon artists in rounds 10-15 in a REAL championship fight.

 

Since I've only watched boxing as early as 1980, I can only compare that era to todays. In the USA at least, boxing was way more popular back then and there were 3 times as many gyms. There was a great article on De La Hoya on Yahoo about reviving a dying US amateur boxing program. Read on the amount of gold medals won by the US back then compared to today. It's shocking. So my take is, when you have a popular sport with more participants, you'll have more legendary type stars. That is why you have more fans saying yesteryears greats like Leonard, Hearns, Hagler, would crush today's greats like Paul Williams, Floyd Mayweather, Pacquiao. I think it's a case of quantity over quality.

http://sports.yahoo.com/box/news;_y...UxLYF?slug=ki-oscar080509&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

 

I haven't read the whole thing but I just want to say that the first mistake that many posters make is that they DO NOT consider boxers from the 70's and 80's as modern fighters when in reality they are......

Basically, the Leonards, Durans, Hearns, Haglers, Arguellos, etc etc from the 70's and 80's who are HOFers and ATGs belong to the modern era, and they were better than many boxers that are fighting at the present..... so, they will be favoured to win many of the fantasy matches against active fighters.....

Another mistake that many posters make is that they think that a boxer from the present should defeat another boxer from the 'PAST' based on the fact that we live in a more modern era, and because we have better technology, and medicine, and food, etc etc, then the boxers from the present are better.... meaning better fighters..... the fact is that once a boxer is in the ring, he will face all kind of situations, and in many cases only his mentality will save his ass.

The truth is that there are many intangibles we could apply to every single fight and these intangibles could be in many cases what could make the difference between victory and defeat...

 

Endurance, superior trainers, more competition / higher levels of competition, more money (this can be debated).
In the past all these factors were at a higher level.
Boxing was "the show".

 

In terms of greatness, you can only compare the guys fighting in their era, how they did at their time. Its the same in any sport. Joe Louis is not less great than Vitali K, just because you reckon he would lose to him. The same in any sport.

Furthermore, boxing has not evolved at anything like the pace of other sports. It is of a different nature. The game was much the same in the 70's and 80's as it is today, give or take. The athletes were just as fit back then, or pretty much so, and their skillsets just as refined.

 

Because you're uneducated. Perhaps I'll take the time to explain in detail tomorrow when I'm feeling more up to it.

 

The past greats were great for their respective time. But not comparable to modern age fighters. Just like Jesse Owens was a great sprinter in the 1930s and the fastest man over 100m. Today he would look like a bloody amateur if he tried to compete in the 100m Olympics. Heck he wouldn't even make it through the elimination/qualification runs.

Same thing in boxing. The past "greats" would be throw around like empty paperbags by modern "greats" and clubbed until they look like a bloody sausage.

 

No it's not. Because boxing just like any other sport lives off athletic conditioning. And sport science together with nutrition has improved athletic conditioning to a whole different sphere across ALL sports, boxing included.

I know people say that a larger percentage of the population was boxing 100 years ago (I mean classic boxing as an amateur sport, not underground or bar fighting), so the chance to find truly talented boxing gems was higher back then then it is now, when a lower percentage of people tries boxing as a sport.

Does anybody have some article/numbers to back up this claim? I'd like to see some proof.