Why is boxing the only sport where the older greats are always better?

dusty rhode's elbow drop for sure. :good

 

ewwww

 

Sugar Ray Robinson fought 20 fights in 1950. 4 of those fights were in December alone. 14 the year before, 11 the year after. There was only one title. No super middleweight or light middle, there were HUNDREDS more participants fighting in the sport and the best normally fought the best and quite often.

The simple fact is that there are far less fighters and far fewer trainers that have retained the knowledge to compliment the sports advances in training techniques and harnessing modern technology and training methods because there simply aren't as many people fighting as regularly - Particularly in the states and especially obvious in the dire HW division at the moment.

I could imagine Mark Spitz or Carl Lewis with the same kind of training that Bolt or Phelps enjoyed competing at their level no question.

However, while there's always plenty of athletics and swimming participants, boxing is a tough game, still hasn't been properly orgainised at any time in its history and demands a lot of its participants which dwindle more and more each year.

Basically - Old days tonnes more fighters fighting far more often.

 

and would never happen. greb would gouge his eyes out by the 5th

 

nice thread... making of a blockbuster. i suggest go to classic forum and see oldies win all the time. :yep

 

fighting always during the days doesn't always guarantee high performance. what they did was they would put some cannonfodder's in between big fights to keep boxer's back in the days in tune and at the same time earning some cash. today's boxer's could have the advantage of technology to attain better nutrition, supplements and equipments. back in the days boxers have bigger talent pool compared to now or maybe not because of the arrival of the soviet block countries in the boxing scene.

 

REALLY good point. look at the success spinks had moving up to heavy with modern day training techniques, same with jones, vs the success moore had. i'd argue moore is a better light heavy than spinks but the training advantages of the modern era allowed michael to move up without just adding fat; archie didn't have that.

 

10 - 20 yrs from now pac, floyd , JMM etc. would have the smae honor i think:smoke

 

It's a myth that older HWT are superior, a total myth. SRL had a style that would compete in any era, Hearns had weapons that would trouble any one from history.

Ray Robinson actually was protected from tall boxers with good jabs. His trainer George Gainford actually revealed this to Emanuel Steward. So it's a myth that all the fights fans wanted to see got made in the ol days. SRL-Hearns II took 8 yrs to make. Duran-Arguello never got made. Trinidad-Quartey. Lewis-Bowe. Foreman-Shavers. SRR-Burley.

 

To be fair, when you bring up video techniques and other things like that, you potentially run into paralysis by analysis. Fighters who lose the ability to react in the ring because they're frozen up by what they've seen and been trained to do from video. It's different from fighters who just have the natural instinct to fight. How many fighters just have that natural ability to just fight smart and efficiently?

 

Because.

No questions asked. Just because.

 

Because a lot of people like acting like they know it all and they are "hardcore" fans and look down upon newer fans and think they need to remind them how little they know and tell them constantly their fav fighter would get schooled/ktfo by X old school monster with magical powers. It's a common trend, even with videogames, you'll see people acting like new games will never compared to old games.