Would the average boxer today win a round v the best boxer 50 years ago?

How much more do we have to endure?

You are the nut who believes that today's HW's are the best HW's of all time.

Do you know how ridiculous that claim is?

There are no skills of the past that you don't see today?

How do you know?

You weren't watching!

 

You know, I read this thread thoroughly and concluded... neither of you are wrong... or right. Let's put it this way: Yes, of course there is a general trend upwards in line with some measurable model of evolution: no one would doubt that. But it's not a line without some peaks and troughs along the way; a line sometimes steeper, sometimes more shallow. Generally upwards, nonetheless.

But overall not as steep as some would have you believe as this brief TED lecture alludes to.

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And you can't assign technological/training/technical improvements to the athlete himself. They belong to the sport. So yes, the sport generally progresses but not along a smooth clean line and the peaks in this line mark outliers, and outliers can't be explained away by a simplistic view of progression. Outliers are people performing above the norm for their time, and the onus is on those promoting a predictable and unrelenting improvement to explain these away. The other side of the debate has only to establish a handful of outliers and that's easier to do.

And for those who say 'well the talent pool is bigger now' as a reason to justify this lineal progression theory probably need to take a step back and realise that's actually arguing against your own cause, if you stop and think.

All sport is improving, but not as fast as we think and not fast enough to eliminate the likelihood some people from the past are still the best ever, or past era's may well have provided TBE if all the variables of sports science development over many decades had remained static. You can't ignore talent in deference to all other factors....