Where do you Draw the Line of what are reasonable arguments between eras?

As far as skill and technique goes,I believe that boxing continued to evolve until the sixties - seventies at a push. Since then,if anything,it's gone backwards.

 

no I wouldn't go that far
only committed to other sections of this forum
& loss of rights to talk about Ali again

 

Marvin Hagler is my all time best ever middleweight, granite chin, heavy handed, great technician and could switch hit seamlessly.
But more recently GGG who had 340 amateur fights before turning pro and being the 160lb king has made me think, is MMH still the greatest??

 

If you had said, that you don't believe boxers from the 1920s (and before) would be competitive today... then I would agree with you.

However, once we move into the 40s - it seems to me, that boxers/boxing had pretty much evolved into what we see today. At least from a technical standpoint. Whether the boxers from 80 years ago were as fit as today, or their (often) very busy schedule was detrimental (rather than beneficial!) when it comes to reaching absolute top shape... well, that's another matter! But at least ability-wise, there were fighters from the 40s, who could compare with today's best (IMO).

 

I mentioned GGG earlier, I've never seen a fighter stay in that pocket where he's in punching distance, for so long, like he does
At Heavyweight Lennox Lewis was a better technical boxer than most 70's heavyweights

 

The 40's as I've stated numerous times is my favourite era.
The way I'd like to compare the 2 eras is having an Ezzard Charles or a Charley Burley, Lloyd Marshall, Archie Moore, Robinson, Williams, Beau Jack, Fritzie Zivic etc etc born 25 years ago competing with today's boxers.
The trouble is and looking at it from another angle, a lot of these men only boxed because of poverty, most wouldn't even go near the ring.

 

Hagler was never a big middleweight which is why he stayed in the division.
If you want to look at weight discrepancies have a look at LaMotta vs Robinson, Zivic, Tommy Bell who were all Welters.
And Lloyd Marshall supposedly handled LaMotta easily and he switched between middle and light heavy

 

When comparing eras, I'm not a big fan of predicting how good a boxer would be, if we pretend he was born decades earlier, or later. I prefer to compare boxers as they are/were in real life... everything else is pure guesswork! And as you say... we don't even know, whether or not someone would actually have chosen boxing as a career, in another era.

 

True. GGG is very good in that way. Can't argue about Lennox either.

 

Ok done it

 

For me Boxers peaked by the early 80's and boxers have NOT gotten better since then. Technique has dropped off and even with employing strength and conditioning coaches stamina seems to be an issue. Lastly I see less real punchers today.

 

The better question is: how would these poorly conditioned modern behemoths last 15 rounds at a solid pace? Likely, most of them would not make it to the final bell even if they weren't knocked clean out. But, make no mistake, a guy like Dillian Whyte would likely get starched by a guy like Joe Louis in 5 rounds or less.

 

Isn't it a case of seeing, what we want to see?

Those who feel that boxing has gone to **** over the last several decades, will pretty much agree with your post.

Those who don't agree with this decline, will see something else... even if everybody is looking at the same fights!

Of course no one is "right" and no one is "wrong"... as we're obviously talking about unverifiable things, that can never be proven one way or the other.