Why do people say that boxers of the 1940's and 50's were so much better than boxers today?

Good post... makes a lot of sense!

 

"the number of major 'boxing nations" has grown"

How much? Here is a list of countries which produced a recognized by The Ring in its ratings world champion in the 1951-1960 decade:

USA, Great Britain, Cuba, South Africa, Australia, Mexico, Japan, Algeria, Argentina, Italy, Nigeria, Sweden, Puerto Rico, Thailand, the Philippines, Brazil

Here are the countries which produced world champions in the 2010 Ring annual ratings:

Ukraine, USA, Canada, Argentina, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, Thailand

Here are the countries which produced world champions in the most recent 2018 Ring ratings:

Great Britain, USA, Mexico, Ukraine, South Africa, Thailand, Japan, Ghana, Columbia

*What I would notice is mainly the overlap. It seems the same countries which produced champions back in the 1950's still produce most of the champions. China, India, Indonesia, Africa, and most of Latin America might have tremendous population growth and huge populations but don't seem to be producing that many champions on the whole.

Like I say, I don't have any conclusion. Eastern Europe represented by the Ukraine has certainly been added, but I don't think that is a huge population center versus the Middle East, East Asia, South Asia, Latin America, etc.

"The broader talent pools is simply the world population"

Well, by this logic increased population should produce better everything, not just boxers. But does it? I am simply leery of drawing that conclusion. Certainly one thing I would submit is that the potential talent pool doesn't mean much if it isn't tapped. A high level of interest in the sport (or anything else considered) is needed.

 

I don't think that increased population and therefore increased potential talent pool necessarily produces better boxers because of course there are so many other factors at play, it would be a simplistic argument to argue that. The reason I brought it up is because i've seen it argued often that the supposed greater talent pool in the 1940s explains why it was a so-called golden age for boxing, I think that the premise to that argument is highly dubious.

As I already said, the 1950s was the start of the more global trend, it was noticably different from the 40s and 30s. Japan acquired their first boxing world champion in 1952, their first golden age where they produced several top fighters was the 1960s. Thailand acquired their first world champion in 1960, they've produced a steady stream of high quality fighters from then on. Mexico had earlier champions but they were usually Americanised, the first cohort of fully Mexican stars were the bantamweights of the late 1950s and their first genuine great fighter was Saldivar in the early 1960s. Latin America as a whole particularly came into the forefront of the sport in the 1960s and 70s. The National Boxing Association changed their name to the World Boxing Association in 1962 reflecting the changes that had already started to take place.

 

The difference is that today you are getting fresh, well-prepared, medically healed boxers who have researched their opponents and gone thru lengthy training camps focused on that single opponent. You aren't getting two guys who fought last week, still carrying their injuries, and who rode a train across country, with no footage on their opponents, and training during layovers at rail stations. It is the best of all possible worlds.

 

Another aspect is when the highest number of pro boxers were able to train full time without having to rely on a side occupation. That should correlate to the amount of money in the sport.

 

I'm a little confused by this post!

If I read it right, you have counted the countries that are represented in The Ring's end of year world rankings during the 1951-1960 period, that have also produce a world champion recognized by them.

And then you compare that to the number of similar countries in two single years, 2010 and today. Not surprisingly, the number for the whole 1951-1960 decade is far bigger than the numbers for the 2 individual years.

Why not compare apples with apples and look at just a single year, using the end of year rankings?:
In 1955 The Ring recognized 8 world champions, representing 3 countries (6xUSA, Algeria, Argentina)
In 2010 Ring recognized 6 champions from 5 countries (2xMexico, Haiti, Argentina, Ukraine, Thailand)
Today (Nov 2018) it's also 6 title holders from 5 countries (2xUkraine, UK, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa)

It looks to me, like the monopoly (almost) the USA held on world champions, is a thing of the past. Today much more countries are taking part, and producing world champions.


"Well, by this logic increased population should produce better everything, not just boxers. But does it?"

Not necessarily. Are Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga better/greater singers than Otis Redding and Janis Joplin? I certainly don't think so - but that's just my opinion!

 

"the 1950's was the start of a more global trend"

Just looking at The Ring's annual rankings at heavyweight, there were top ten rated heavyweights from these countries in the 1920's:

Chile, Canada, Argentina, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, England, Norway, and Germany

in the 1930's, there were top ten rated heavyweights from these countries:

Germany, Italy, Canada, South Africa, England, Finland, Chile, Wales, Argentina, and France.

While I don't dispute that boxing is a more global sport today, it appears that other than Asia, every inhabited continent is represented here, with 15 nations total producing 23 rated fighters. (I simply am not as familiar with the fighters in the lower divisions and don't have the time to try to look then up on boxrec) And there were champions from Germany and Italy. Olympic heavyweight champions came from 1920-USA, 1924-Norway, 1928-Argentina, 1932-Argentina, 1936-Germany.

*It should be noted that the world population would have been different. Due to the advances in medicine coming in the west first, the population of Europe and North America was much higher as a percentage of world population than it is today. I believe the percentage of the population classified as "white" has declined from 25% to something like 12%. The massive increase in population in the last century is in the developing world.

Just on the Europeans, the following countries produced European Union champions (I got the countries from wikipedia which listed them by country, otherwise it would have been too much work) in all divisions in the 1920's and 1930's:

Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Greece, Denmark, Romania (plus Senegal & Algeria)

Already pretty widespread across Europe pre World War II.

Bottom line is I am not disputing that boxing is expanding globally, but I do dispute that it wasn't basically a global sport even before WWII.

 

But many of the old fighters professed needing to fight often to stay sharp. It was not unusual for a champion to have an over-the-weight tune-up before a defense. Why if pointing to one fight after a lone lay-off is the best policy? This would seem to imply that teams would be at their best at the beginning of the season after a long lay-off and a training camp. But a lot of ex-competitors profess to thinking it takes actual competition to reach playing trim in many sports. Skills and reflexes erode w/o top competition.

 

There's guys on here who know way more about the history of boxing than me. However, I consider myself to be very objective. I'm never biased on anything (sadly a rare trait), not least biased to certain boxing eras.

From what my eyes tell me, the 70s,80s,90s had the greatest talent boxing has seen.

 

Good points,

but my aim comparing the champions of the 1950's to recent years was purely to show that the countries producing champions would have a lot of overlap. You are correct that comparing ten years to one could produce distortions.

"apples to apples in just a single year"

"In 1955 The Ring recognized 8 world champions, representing 3 countries (6 USA, Algeria, Argentina)"

"today it is also 6 title holders from 5 countries (Ukraine 2, UK, Thailand, Mexico, South Africa)"

Okay, but this could a distortion also. The 8 champions is all there could be. The 6 champions is from 17 divisions. With only 8, a change in even one division had a big impact. in 1952 & 53, and again from 1957 to 1959 there would have been 3 out of the 8 from other countries (Cuba, Australia, & Argentina in '52 & '53, Nigeria, Algeria, Argentina, & Sweden would have provided the 3 of 8 champions in '57 to '59)

But my main issue would be the impact of African-Americans. In 1955, for example, 4 of the 8 champions were African American. As I pointed out, they would only be about 10% of the US population, and something like 1% of the world population. But they are dominant not only in America against the vast majority of the potential American talent pool, but in the whole world.

Three of these men were truly outstanding in their time--Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, and Sandy Saddler. They were champions on the average for over a decade--Robinson from 1946 to 1960, Moore from 1952 to 1962, and Saddler from 1948 to 1957. It is worth noting that Moore & Saddler never lost their titles but just retired.

But who was behind these three men? In 1955, Patterson was Moore's #1 contender, but moving out of the division. Behind him were Yolande Pompey of Trinidad and Gerhard Hecht of Germany. Olson was the #1 contender to Robinson (and would also soon leave the division) but directly behind him were Charles Humez of France and Eduardo Lausse of Argentina. Saddler had as top contenders Fred Galiana of Spain, Ciro Morasen of Cuba, Hogan Bassey of Nigeria, and Flash Elorde of the Philippines.

Lightweight champion Wallace Smith was a legit champ but probably not the best lightweight in the world. The #1 contender was Duilio Loi of Italy, almost certainly a better fighter. Joe Brown, who would replace Smith that year as champion and have a great six year reign, was not even in the top ten in 1955.

So my bottom line is that the "American" domination is real, but somewhat of a distortion as it is really an African American domination. Otherwise, the US would have seemed far less dominant in the 1950's and on the whole would not have had the champions the rest of the world produced.

That raises an issue with three possible answers concerning more diverse world champions today:

1-----boxing in other countries has improved.
2-----American boxing has declined, possibly because of falling interest among African-Americans.
3-----both of the above are true.

My take is there is no way of telling, really. Did African-Americans (and to a lesser extent, Italian-Americans) dominate American boxing in the 1950's only because Jewish and Irish Americans who had produced many great fighters earlier lost interest in the sport? How many champions from other countries would there have been in the 1950's if great African-American fighters such as Robinson, Moore, and Saddler had not been claiming 3 of 8 titles?

I have no firm answers, just food for thought questions.

 

Comparing the number of countries represented in the heavyweight rankings in the 20s and 30s, with the number today, only gives us part of the picture, since every boxer who fought above 175 was ranked as a heavyweight… whereas only 200+ boxers count as heavyweights today. If we took the combined number of countries represented in the H and CW divisions today, we would then find far more countries, than can be seen in the old H rankings. However, that would also not be a fair comparison, since we would have twice as many fighters to chose from.

So since we can't compare H with H or CW with CW, we have to go down one division further, to LH, if we want to make a proper (apples to apples) division to division comparison.

So how about if we compare the first 10 annual LH rankings (1924-1933) with the last 10 years (2008-2017)?

Countries represented (using country of birth) in The Ring's annual LH rankings 1924-1933:
USA
Ireland
Canada
Cuba
Germany

Countries represented in The Ring's annual LH rankings 2008-2017:
UK
USA
Jamaica
Canada
Argentina
Haiti
Ukraine
Armenia
Hungary
Kazakhstan
Spain
Malawi
Germany
Russia,
Poland
Algeria
Colombia
Kyrgyzstan
Sweden

Though pro boxing was already a global sport (all continents taking part) pre-WWII... there can be little doubt (imo), that far more countries produce world class boxers today, than in past eras. I don't see, how we can conclude otherwise!

 

Good research. My point in the 1920's & 1930's was not to necessarily compare them to today, but just to show that world-rated fighters came from quite a few countries. As for the 175 lb to 200 lb and above, I don't think my point has much to do with that. The % of active boxers was probably much higher in divisions like lightweight and featherweight back then, as the general population was smaller due to poorer nutrition.

One caveat about these ratings--they are American centered and so might distort toward US boxers. For example, Max Schmeling although the European light-heavy champion never appears in the light-heavy ratings, but quickly went on to become heavyweight champion. Hard to believe he wasn't a top ten light-heavy for a while.

But your ten years of light-heavyweight ratings inspired me to total up the countries with ratings at light-heavy in past decades:

1950's-----USA, Germany, UK, Trinidad, France, Uruguay, Canada, Italy, South Africa, Tonga, Puerto Rico

1960's-----USA, UK, Germany, Italy, South Africa, Tonga, France, Peru, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Australia, Croatia, Venezuela, Nigeria, Denmark

1970's-----USA, Venezuela, Bahamas, Nigeria, Italy, South Africa, Germany, Argentina, UK, Denmark, Mexico, Croatia, Zambia, Uganda, Holland

and for convenience, your list from 2008 to 2017

UK, USA, Jamaica, Canada, Argentina, Haiti, Ukraine, Armenia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Spain, Malawi, Germany, Russia, Poland, Algeria, Columbia, Kyrgyzstan, Sweden

The totals are 11 in the 1950's, 15 in the 1960's & 1970's, and 19 in the 2008-2017 decade,

The difference seems to me be almost entirely the old Soviet Union, with the Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan forming the advantage over the 1960's and 1970's. Actually adding in Poland and Hungary to the five old Soviet republics, you end up 7 eastern European/central Asian countries versus only Croatia from the earlier era, so the whole advantage to this most recent decade is the old Warsaw Pack countries.

Eastern Europe going pro has certainly changed pro boxing, but what if anything has changed in the rest of the world isn't as clear.

 

I am not agreeing or disagreeing about the 70-90’s. Just curious if this era coincides with your adolescent and formative years. It seems to me most/many of us have a similar evaluation of our youthful years out of nostalgia more so than actual evidence. Again not saying I think you are right or wrong just curious about the filter you viewed those years through.

 

No mate. I'm a millennial lol. Born in 1993 mate, and relatively knew to the sport. But you are correct. People do hold those biases.

 

Lol I guess if I compared your user name to mine....well..I should have been able to figure that out. Thanks for the insight either way