Past boxers fought in the name of honor. There ain't no ducking. The best is obligated to face the best available.
Good question! I think way too much is made of this too. There is something so complacently smug about this age. Not just in terms of boxing, but if we're judged a hundred years from now with half the contempt that people display for the past, we'll go down (fairly) as the worst generation ever.
Back to boxing. There have obviously been refinements in training eating, technique, etc. But I don't think as a rule that the old timers were just plain worse. I mean they were human beings and for the most part a lot tougher than the new breed. Plus smaller guys would fights guys two or three weight classes up then out of necessity...and win. Joe Choinsky, evidently taught jack Johnson most what he knew about parrying and defense, and Jack's natural reflexes were incredible. Maybe comparable to Ali's if not, better than the vast majority of fighter's in the last hundred years. Dempsey's power would still give guys trouble.
Also, you have to allow, that, were we somehow able to make these fights between the ages, the fighters would both the have the advantages (disadvantages) of a given time period (flims of the other guy fighting for instance are almost like a cheat sheet (again Tunney was first here studying Dempsey for the first six years he held the title.)
Basically I think the disrespect is unfounded. Boxing fans love to shoot their mouths off, 'You don't know s--- about boxing' being a very common refrain.
I certainly think the sport has been honed, but if you go back, you'll see that all the basics were there. This current era believes way too much in a kind of obligatory progress that touches everyone by extension. It's crap. At least the old guys knew the value of hard work.
I'm sure the boxers in 2014 fight the same as they did in 1914. It's hard for them to develop their skills over a Century of fighting lol.
Here's a pretty decent video on the evolution of boxing.
There is way more $ involved now. Every fighter fights more defensively because it may effect their next paycheck. It effects who they fight as well.
Technique-wise.
Some in this forum say the boxers are more ''technical'' now.
Cus made the Philly Shell in the 40's but aside from that personally i don't see how boxing technique has changed aside from the rules.
Some point to highly technical fighters like Floyd Mayweather, but they ignore films of greats like Charley Burley who effectively used the technique against giants. Burley also parried away punches with his shoulder, he didn't absorb them on his arm like Mayweather tends to do.
Others, like Willie Pep, used footwork reminiscent to Mayweather, and angles reminiscent to Pacquiao.
Really old fighters, like James Jeffries, were filmed with atrocious cameras yet because of this many DISMISS him and his peers as ''another era of fighters who wouldn't survive today''.
Then you had fighters like Gene Tunney & Fitszimmons who kept their hands down really low when they were in the outside [to create fake openings to counter] but it's seen as primitive, but when Roy Jones did it it was masterful...
Thoughts?
