When did boxers become 'skilled'?

Show me film of old fighters who don’t look modern.

 

Jack Johnson for one.

 

Good chance James J Corbett UD’s forum hero David Tua.

 

By skill I always think Floyd Mayweather, Jr. The first one to box like that was Willie Pep but to me, Hector Camacho Sr. ushered in that era from his fight with Jose Luis Ramirez (some say the one with Edwin Rosario but to me it was really the bout with Jose Luis Ramirez)

Remember this was the era in which even people without big ko records like Greg Haugen and Freddie Roach banged like there was no tomorrow. After Camacho we had Pernell Whitaker and then the entire thing caught on, I guess.

Although I have to remember that Miguel Canto was pretty defensive too!

 

I read the book on Gans but never got to see him fight..lol!

 

What’s not modern about it?

 

I've never been overly impressed by Johnson based on modern standards he looks very dated. Obviously I'm not taking anything away from him, and for his era he was head and shoulders above the rest. But when comparing his style to the modern era it looks very dated.

Some guys from the black and white era like Dempsey, Tunney, Charles, Robinson, Louis, Burley, etc. Still look amazing on film and you could see there style would easily fit into the modern era, I don't get that same feeling by watching Jack Johnson.

 

I don't think Bill Squires looked very modern!

Heavyweight championship - Squires vs. Burns 1907 (Colorized Boxing) - YouTube

 

Tua decapitates him.

 

Boxers always had skill. The game developed in different ways but the techniques always had purpose. I think cleaning up the infighting a lot changed the nature of the game and allowed the skill cap to increase as you open up the offense. When you open up offense with a ruleset, you increase the needs on defense and the skills needed goes up. Reminds me of the NBA bringing in the shooting era, when boxers became way more technical. I'd say a lot of 1930s boxers looked pretty modern and by the 1950s a fair share of boxers had good technique by modern standards. I think it's hard for me to find appreciable skill increases since the 1980s or so.

 

I rank Johnson #6 at HW all time based on what he achieved in his own time, but........The copious amounts of clinching/wrestling/hitting and holding, for starters.

 

sometime in the 1940s