Why did dominant super tall heavyweights only emerge relatively recently?

I agree it's different, for a variety of reasons, including those that you've given.

If we had the ability to pull fighters from previous eras via a time machine & put them straight into modern rings, as they were in their own era, I suspect you & I would predict some of the outcomes differently.

That said, whilst H2H predictions across vastly different eras are harmless fun, they don't really interest me to a serious degree. I'm much more interested in analysing fighters actual careers and comparing them across different eras, based on the greatness of what they achieved in their respective eras.

 

Degrass was not accustomed to those conditions but the gap in time was huge. 7 tenths of a second is the difference between running a 10 second 100 meters which has been broken 100s of times and running a 9.3 which is almost 3 tenths under the world record. 7 tenths of a second is the difference between the best 100 meter mens times and womens.

If you look at baseball a sport where equipment like the bat and ball has not changed. Micky Mantle has the furthest home runs . Nolan Ryan threw the fastest.

Sport is big business of course they want the audience to think it’s the best performances ever in the history of the world. That’s why they don’t make it known public that the radar gun in baseball used to pick up the speed at home plate but some time in the early 2000s they started recording the speed at the point of release from the pitchers hand. That’s why more pitchers now days hit 100 mph lol. 100 mph pitcher now days was a 92 mph pitcher in the 90s.

Your right as time passes we accumulate more knowledge and do improve at some things, chess for example.But things like sports are not so complicated that a dedicated person who could be smarter and with better genetics could not figure it out even better then now days.

 

I understand the specifics you mention, but don't understand what your view is on my wider and more general point that, in the main, measurable athletic performance has improved over the past several decades, century, etc. Do you agree or disagree with that statement?

Again, I'm not trying to diminsh the achievements of athletes or boxers from previous eras. On the contrary, I'm in a minority that ranks Joe Louis as the greatest HW of all time. My top 6 p4p fighters aren't exactly modern - SRR, Greb, Langford, Armstrong, Charles & Fitzsimmons. My top 20 boxers of all time include Gans, McFarland & McGovern, all of whom had their last fight over a century ago. I'm not trying to make or infer any points beyond the statement I made above & don't have an agenda beyond calling it as I see it.

 

Jesse Owens in 1936 was running 7 tenths of a second faster then the silver medel winner in the Olympics under the same conditions in a test.

It’s a pretty clear example of a athlete from the 1930s would be able to complete with the best all time under the same conditions. Degrass was running over a full second slower then he normally can run with modern track and spikes.

I think some of the best genetics all time have been in the past and some of the best genetics are now. Also some sports now are more popular then a long time ago so they are drawing from a bigger talent pool.

modern training is not that advanced compared to old training. The best thing you can do for training is sport specific exercise. If you want to be a good swimmer you have to swim a lot, or a good runner has to run a lot. If you do different type of training it’s branching out your body in different directions. You don’t want to branch out in different directions if your into a specific sport you want all the energy from the food to go where it needs to go.

 

I agree that improvements in equipment will have contributed to some improved world records. I don't think it is the only factor though.

When Degrass runs in shoes & on a surface he's accustomed to, he's much faster than Owens was running in footwear & on a surfce he was accusomted to. I accept the conditions in which Degrass runs are likely more conducive to faster times than those under which Owens ran, but it's still not a fair & equal comparison. The one thing we do agree on, is that Owens is the greater sprinter & athlete.

I specifically mentioned there are outliers and some long standing world records, because I'd hoped to avoid quoting individual examples at each other, but rather acknowledge a clear trend towards improved measurable athletic performance over time, but alas, no such luck.

In 1954 Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4 minute mile after several decades of men running that distance. It rightly remains today one of the iconic sporting achievements. The guy was a full time medical student, fitting training in around his studies, yet he ran the fastest mile in history up to that point. Now more than a thousand people run under a mile each & every year.

The 1904 winner of the Olympics Marathon won it in a time of three and a half hours. He drank brandy and rat poision because he thought it would fuel his run. The 2012 winner did it 2-hours and 8-minutes. Was that purely down to better footwear, or do you also suspect other factors contributed, including, but not limited to, more optimal nutrition and supplements (legal or otherwise)?

In the Athens 1895 Olympics the average weight of competitors in throwing events was 63kg, compared to 142kg in the 2016 Olympics. Of course the equipment has changed in the interim, but all things being equal, if you think those 63kg guys could throw as far as the best throwers of today, then, well I don't know what to say to you.

I know a guy who was an exceptional cyclist as a kid, one of the best in the country. During his late teens, his professional coach told him he was the most naturally talented cyclist he'd worked with, but if he wanted to go pro and compete, he had to start doping. Why is doping such a big business if it doesn't improve athletic performance? If today's athletes, in at the very least some disciplines, can't compete successfuly at the elite level without doping, how could those of pre-doping eras have competed?

You don't think athletic performance, in the main, has improved over time? Ok. Let's just say we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

Track surfaces, competition, shoes, gene pool, numbers, science, coaching, video, PED's all contribute to the improvement.

 

Agreed.

 

Degrass ran over a second slower over 100 meters in 1936 running conditions. That’s all we have to go on, he might not be able to shave more then a tenth off his time with more time to prepare. Which would still put him near a 11 second 100 meter.

Roger bannister ran in old shoes and tracks also. So if he has modern conditions heis running close to a second faster per 100 meter that would shave 16 seconds off his mile time , 1600 meters in a mile. 16 seconds off his mile time puts his mile at 4:43 which puts him in range to beat the world record possibly.

 

I am not sure that the big heavyweights of the past were just in the ring because they were big.

Bear in mind that there are guys the size of Lewis and Fury in every era, but most of them don't get to the top of the sport.

So what were the key attributes of those who did get to the top?

Jess Willard had exceptional power, exceptional durability, and exceptional endurance. He was a physical marvel, but his technique was not very good, and he was not temperamentally suited to the sport.

We don't have any film of Fred Fulton, but by all accounts he seems to have been a good technician. It was ultimately his lack of durability that limited how far he got.

If you look at Carnera, he basically got to the top because he was big and technically sound. He was not a monster puncher for a man his size, and he didn't take the best punch. His main card was that he knew how to used his size.

The common theme with these three men is not that they did not know how to use their size.

They all did in one way or another.

Teh common theme is that they were all lacking something else.

 

With respect, you're stretching substantially here. You appear to be suggesting all other things being equal, Owens could run 100 metres c.0.8 seconds quicker than Degrass. I doubt Owens without PEDs could run the 100 in c.9.1 seconds when athletes with PEDs have gotten nowhere near that.

I guess the 1904 Olympic marathon winner would shave an hour and a half off of his time with more aerodynamic shoes and modern paved roads, too.....

 

To my knowledge that test they did on Degrass is the only one. And he ran 1:11 seconds slower under the 1936 conditions. We know the new equipment helps athletes and we have some data about it, I’m just using the only numbers we have.

The marathon is a little different since the surface is the same but over 26 miles footwear would make a huge difference.

 

Do you think if Owen's was transported to today via time machine, given the same footwear and surface as modern sprinters, he'd run anything around a second faster than the world fastest 100m runner?

 

With modern equipment if we are going to use the only information we have Owens would smash the world record by about 3 tenths of a second. It’s not accurate though but it goes to show he might have a chance to be a record breaker under modern conditions.

 

So you don't think he would be around a second faster than De Grasse under modern conditions. Neither do I. Therefore, any test where that was the result shouldn't be considered representative of how Owens would fair in modern conditions.

To suggest a 1930's athlete without access to PEDs could run 100 metres with modern footwear and on modern surface in around 9.28 seconds, when elite sprinters proven to have used PEDs (that's performance enhancing) have got nowhere that, well, I won't be rude, lets just say I can see you won't be reasoned with, so I'll duck out of our interaction now and let you have the right of the final reply.

 

Your the one who said Owens would not come close to making the US Olympic squad. I just showed you a video of a test they did Where Owens showed far greater speed than a Olympic medallist.

I have pointed out some other records in base ball where they use the same equipment have been set 70 years ago. Bob Feller has one of the best fast balls all time behind Nolan Ryan, Micky Mantle longest home runs.

No doubt some of the best athletes all time are playing today, but a lot are back in history also. Just because someone has a better pair of shoes and runs faster because of them does not make him a better runner.