Who believes the fighters of yesteryear, Could never Beat today's Guys.??

Who is the poster who opined Tommy Gunn could whup the Brown Bomber? That would liven things up. As a general rule the athletes of today are better than the athletes of yore but there are exceptions.

 

i would think that fighters from the past if they were given the current training and nutrition as the modern day fighters have at their disposal, some would succeed quite well! fighters from the past fought a LOT more in a single year than current fighters. unless there was a very serious knock out. so, if a current fighter were to go back in time and fight on that schedule, would be interesting to see how they would do.
imagine having a rematch against a tough fighter just SIX weeks later like some had back then?

 

Let's see.......back in the 'old days' we had 15 round fights, in smokey clubs and arenas, fighters fighting far more often (Greb fought 49 times in One Year!!) & greats fighting each other a lot, brutal beatings going on much, much longer with referees that let it continue, letting fighters get up again & again, fighters getting knocked out of the ring and scrambling back in as quickly as possible, often no air conditioning, rougher brawling tactics allowed, smaller gloves with less padding, 8 weight divisions with one champ in each, fighting sick, fighting injured,.........

I could go on and on. The average fighter in those days forgot more about boxing than most of these guys today will ever know, and would beat their asses most times.

Yours Truly,

A Miserable Old Fight Fan

 

I think it is reasonable to think that some of the bareknuckle champions of the 19th century, might have beaten the best heavyweights of today under their own ruleset.

 

Boxing is rather unique in their best all compete in different weight classes, expect for heavyweight who size and weight
on average today dwarfs the size of the 1950's and below. Then is this weight draining business and dehydrating back to normal that has welter weights weighing in and competing vs each other as middle weights. Boxing wasn't supposed to be that way, but it is today. Making it tough on those lower weight fighters to compete with fighters in the same division today without such advantages. In some cases, fighters weigh in 3-4 times above the weight class the fighting in on fight night.

 

There are advantages to both generations. Today’s fighters - have huge edge in sports science, bodily nutrition, workout routines, etc. Many treat there body as a temple, none of them smoke - many old timers did. And few drink. Almost all old timers drank.
Also - by fighting far less often it give’s todays athletes far more time for their body to recover. I often see in old timer’s records a loss like 3 weeks after win against an inferior opponent and with out proof it makes me wonder how many times so of these old era guys may have walked back through the ropes with a pre existing injury, or concussion that hasn’t properly healed yet that led to a poor performance.

The old timers advantages are- In America anyway- the sport was wildly more popular - you had boxing gyms on every corner. And each gym pitted their guy against the other’s gym best guy etc. By time someone reached world level, you knew this guy was battled tested and made it out of a pool of killer sharks. Today you get guys that almost always protected all the way to the top. Protect their 0 to give the pretense of talent. Another benefit of the old timers depending on which rules you want to fight under - is they had to put fans in the seats - you got FIGHTS - someone like Floyd Mayweather - infinitely skilled undeniably - but he would be considered a stinker - and wouldn’t get big fights and his style probably would of given him a few losses like the Madiana bout.
Todays fighters longevity is much better and less neurological damage but I’m not sure their peak is as high because their skills are not challenged enough to remain as sharp.

Anyway - I honestly think that sports science would prevail 80 percent of the time especially at heavyweight. While great fighters of way back could win a mythical one off fight with todays great I think many would be picked off and lose more often fighting a modern man’s career resume with 40-50 years of advanced science helping them the modern guys.
Now if the old timer - is allowed to train with modern methods etc for their career it changes everything

 

What on earth makes you think that very few modern fighters drink?
If you honestly believe that you are very mistaken.

 

Fair enough. Many do. The larger point I was trying to make is today’s athletes take better care of themselves outside the ring. There is just more knowledge on what’s harmful today than yesteryear.

 

I'm curious... how many "average" fighters from back in the day have you actually seen?

 

There is no evidence to support that. In fact, I think that today's fighters are worse between fights than it used to be.
First, they fight less. Even coming up, 6 fights in a year is rare. They have longer periods of time after a fight to do what young men do. Even if you fight every 90 days, the tendency is to do whatever you want for 60 of those days.
Second, the 36 hour rehydration period leads many guys to think that they can cut more weight more quickly.
In the old days, fighting every 8-10 days it was much harder to get really wrecked. But guys did it.
Think about it...you have a young guy that gets $2500 for a 4 round fight, he will spend that money. And, in 2022, he probably won't fight again for 90 days. The number of guys that will be back in the gym, training like they have a fight scheduled when they do not, is very minimal.
They will come to the gym hungover or stoned or just not show up until they have a fight. Young men have always been that way and that is why so many guys would take so many fights. To keep the attention from wandering.

 

I was about to comment something less sophisticated but similar. I mean look at Oscar De La Hoya and compare him to Emile Griffith. Joe Louis to Mike Tyson. But there are examples of party boys in all eras but for the reasons you highlighted it most likely stopped some great careers going pear shaped quickly, off the top of my head Jake LaMotta.

 

As per an article I recently linked - even going back to Ken Norton’s time, early career, it was a very tough gig.

Norton, a single dad, driving to drop his son off to his parents when he had to fight, driving himself long distances to his fights because it was the cheapest mode of transport, working a day job on a production line to supplement the meagre paydays from his fights…..and still mainly turning in high quality performances despite all…..