Your Unshakeable Boxing Opinions

The issue is how 40lb heavier boxers suddenly made it work for themselves when for decades they never could. To be so far over their BMI.

A fighter without steroids/modern training I picture as inferior in every way to the champions that came before who did not benefit from this. What’s wrong with that?

We know that drugs cheats WOULD be less effective without PEDs. We don't need to assume this. This is known.

I feel it would be unsustainable for them to be the fighters they were WITHOUT the advances they benefited from. That’s the issue.

There always was big men. Long men. 40lb heavier men.

Without living when they did modern heavyweights would not be so heavy or fast for their size.

Perhaps without these advances Lewis would have been a champion of sorts. Perhaps Tyson, but who knows? They were all enhanced by modern advances. Take it away and what do we have? Thinner slower, less athletic men.

i think you are avoiding the issue completely. That’s okay. Perhaps you misunderstood. I’m talking about the same fighter not being as effective in one era because putting weight at that time just made fighters slower and effected their wind. where as at a later time, after advances in carrying excess functional weight had been realised the same guy can finally be successful gaining extra weight.

As in nothing to do with a big guy being able to use a weight advantage over a small guy as a game plan. That is separate. If it was just gameplans so many giants would have been successful earlier. it would not have been so rare before the steroid era. Some trainer wouldn’t have worked out that game plan?

I’m talking about the guy himself being over a recommended weight for his height and still winning. Being old and it not being a disadvantage anymore. Stuff that was unusual before.

 

Many people here will laugh, but mine is Vitali Klitschko is an ATG heavyweight.

 

Tyson blew away both.

"Erwith, the breath of the King hast enough to defeateth his rival."

-Shakespearo

 

The mafia had more influence on Sonny Liston's career than people commonly think. Much more.

It's willful ignorance to think that the mafia, who viewed him Sonny as nothing more than a piece of meat to make money, would choose to cash in only when it was time for him to lose. It would've been much more profitable to fix fights on the way up, especially if you had a guy everyone was scared of and was a legitimate hard hitter and great fighter in the first place. Nobody would question it when an opponent got knocked out in a certain round.

To think they kept a hands-off approach for the entirety of the way up, you'd have to think they kept hold of a marginally popular fighter for years before waiting to see a return on the "investment" when he finally got to Patterson. It simply makes no logical sense from the mafia's perspective, and those were the guys pulling the strings.

 

Hearns would have fared better against Leonard and Hagler if he'd been given rematches.

Marciano and Frazier, at the weights and sizes in which they actually fought, would have had serious trouble against many "non-ATG" heavyweights of the past 40 years.

Ali's win over Foreman is more of a testament to Foreman's flaws as a fighter than Ali's transcendental greatness.

For heavyweights, "greatness" isn't very useful in thinking about how individual heavyweights from vastly different eras would fare against one another.

 

Tyson might very well have blown away both had the fights been on the level, but in my perception it could hardly be clearer that neither Seldon nor Stewart were putting forth an honest effort -and it's not difficult to see what incentives might tidily explain this.

Kudos on the intentionally apocryphal Shakestoyevsky quote. "Erwith" even sounds like a real archaism. ( I had to look it up.)

 

Shakestoyevsky made me laugh heartily. Many thanks.

 

That a whole lot more fights were "predetermined" by someone agreeing to lose beforehand either by how they got the fight, knowing their role going in, or by extra payment right beforehand. I suspect the "winner" rarely was told and only suspected when someone put the cuffs on themselves. And that we will never know the half of the seediness that went on in the dressing rooms and gym offices....

 

I understand the logic and it's a reasonable assumption... but I think some context is needed.

Pep was undefeated champion for 6 years and beat every available top fighter in his weight class at that time. Saddler deserves great credit for being the one to finally beat Pep and he may have always had the style to beat Pep whenever they fought or maybe he just caught him at the right time.

But if you believe, as I do, that no fighter is unbeatable (see my earlier post) then who they ultimately lose to is not automatically a better fighter, just a fighter whose style was wrong for them and/or was someone they fought when they weren't as good as they once were.

Fighting Harada beat Eder Jofre twice yet almost every bantamweight list has Jofre higher than Harada and rightly so. The greatest fighters will all lose eventually but who they lose to is not automatically a better fighter overall.

 

That would make them the same as every ATG wouldn’t it? Every ATG has serious trouble with a non ATG at some point.

On the subject of heavyweights of the past 40 years, How many could even exist as they are in any other period? Where would they get the PEDs from in any other timeframe?

 

Seldon was an obvious dive. Disgraceful too since he was supposed to be a champion.

Stewart started too slowly just like he did vs Foremans and he got knocked down and badly hurt by a flush overhand right less than 5 seconds in and then didn't manage to recover against Tyson who was an ATG finisher. His legs were clearly gone after the first knockdown and he just couldn't recover since it was the beginning of the round and the 1st or 2nd punch of the fight already hurt him badly.

He was knocked down hard very very early, of course he isn't going to look spectacular in the next 2 minutes he managed to survive after he'd already been flattened 5 seconds in. Stewart had a serious confidence problem that was apparent in quite a few of his fights, It was an especially deadly flaw against Tyson. I don't think he was planning to lose when he came into the ring that night

 

Just as plausible as any other theory.

 

Harry Greb is impossible to rate with any accuracy.

 

That Ali would have Not gotten even better without the exile.

He wouldn’t have. How was he going to maintain even the same form during 1964-1971 without adapting somewhat in some way like everyone else did?

By 1971 Ali was where he would have been had he not had that time off.

 

No, I think the two of them would be especially vulnerable to a number of the bigger heavyweights of the past 40 years, due to their small size, aggressive fighting styles, defensive holes, and other technical limitations.