Present V Past

We've done this before of course and this isn't aimed at 'us' as such, but more so 'the other' boxing fans. You know the one's, Facebook, Twitter and all that lark. We're smarter than them ;D I know we're not going to get any definitive answers but we rarely do on anything so why let that stop us?

The inability to give present day fighters a hope in hell against their counterparts from eras past. Why is that? Genuine belief that past fighters were better? A desire to sound knowledgeable about past fighters? A complete inability to think for ones self so go with the status quo?

Probably a bit of all three right?

I got no problem with someone thinking a fighter from the past beats a present day one. I'll use the example I used in another thread. Joshua V Lewis. No issue at all with anyone saying Lewis wipes the floor with Joshua. Probably go along with that. But this idea that Lewis operated on an entirely different level to Joshua, Fury, Wilder etc... That's the nonsense part. What's even more nonsensical is the idea that that he had to operate on a different level because they all were back then. Crazy talk.

As an aside. Hagler V Golovkin. Comes up all the time. You'll see them swarm all over Facebook and Twitter. Hagler eats Golovkin alive!!!!!! Get fucked! All the love in the World for Marvin. But ain't no way anyone is eating Golovkin alive. Beats him on points in a war of biblical proportions? I'm ok with that. But fuck off with this beats him easily or inside the distance.

When looking at this I never look at A versus B. That's not the question being asked and besides that, we've already covered it by consensus. Lewis would beat Joshua. Done, easy. I look at A versus who B fought.

The question is could Joshua, Fury, Wilder etc....have competed in Lewis's era. The answer is an easy yes. Replace Lennox Lewis with Anthony Joshua throughout Lewis's career. How different is it? Maybe loses the Klitschko fight? Maybe Holyfield? Aside from those two I don't see there being a whole lot of difference if any at all.

The deck is always loaded against the contemporary fighter. Half a career stacked up against an illustrious, all time great fighters complete career, hardly fair is it? To compound it more, a serious set of rose tinted glasses are generally used to look at the past fighters record. Rank average fighters become good solid contenders. In this particular example we'll hear how good Bruno was, how tough Mercer was, how murderous a puncher Ruddock was.

How would Joshua, Fury, Wilder, Whyte fair against Lewis, Holyfield, Bowe, Tyson? You might get a generous to the new boys 3-1 score line. More likely a 4-0 sweep for the old boys. Again, the deck is loaded for the old boys, we're immediately seeing a peak (even though he was far from) Mike Tyson rampaging through the four of them on the same night.

Stick the contemporary fighters into the mix in the late 90's early 00's. Would they dominate? No. Would they be out of their depth because the era back then was so good? Fuck off!

In non heavyweight fights, changing weigh in rules also muddybthe waters somewhat.

Previously, fighters had same day weigh ins, so they couldn't dehydrate as much and entered the ring around and aboutvthe weight limit for their division. Nowadays, they weigh in 24 hours before, so a big guy can cut down to a lower weight division and actually enter the ring more than a stone over the weight limit.

Golovkin is not a good example because he is a 'small' middleweight ..... but Jacobs was nearly a cruiserweight against him, so Hagler might well have been fighting at welterweight today!

​I used to fight at welterweight and I met a young guy last week who is a current amateur welterweight - he was nearly 6 foot tall and looked like a big middleweight to me!

No way are we th same weight division, so these era by era comparisons are flawed at the lighter weights to be honest.

There is also the 'other' boxing fan who believes that modern fighters would always be superior to old timers .... better training, better nutrition, better science etc.

Anthony Joshua MUST be better than Joe Louis because he is bigger and has more defined muscles. He benefits from modern science (steroids;D) etc

Thats equally as bullshit, of course.

I’ve only really noticed that recently. The influx of boxing ‘fans’ that think boxing began in 2010. The think the premier league started at the same time too. They generally love AJ, Man City and wouldn’t think twice about sharing their fortune with you via email.

There is a never ending debate about this topic. What I will say is that we tend to focus on the all time greats of the past and then set up a fantasy match up with someone who hasn’t proven themselves yet.

So in your example, Lewis is known as one of the best HWs ever. AJ is potentially #3 HW right now. If we are comparing people to Mayweather or Pacquiao, I think there are a lot better debates. I understand there are still those who refuse to say a modern fighter is better than an older one, but I think matching up two all time greats makes it better. Like your example of Haglar and GGG. I have seen ridiculous ideas on both sides. Most educated fans would understand it wouldn’t be a one sided beating or could at least give real evidence as to why it would be.

Most educated fans are pretty fair I think.

Makes me remember a time when I had a guy actually refuse to trade anymore fights with me because I "refused to ask for anything prior to 1990" ;D. Very much stuck on the here and now. We boast the most about what we actually lived live for the most part. Young fans today will get it eventually, literally takes time. Great thing about the sport is it's a treasure trove all for the taking and appreciation once fans open their minds and respect trailblazers. That said I think of a quick combo capped with the left hook Povetkin got off and what the bouncing Shmoo Ruiz could do with the left hook and have to conclude Holyfield sends AJ crashing ;D. In fairness the old lot have all concluded and come full circle. We have that perspective. Guys on top today still have the other side of the mountain to navigate too, stories to be written.

And for all the present day improvements in nutrition, training and availability that may benefit today vs yesteryear in these hypotheticals, there's much to be said for what those generations would also bring. I really do think the mentality and career activity levels were massive pluses. Not to get all rose colored glasses and fawning on faded glory but generationally we were just harder then. Guys went careers without even sniffing a title and the accolades and elevated opinion of self that comes with it today. Devin Haney calls himself a two time champion and I cannot begin to name who he beat for it but rest assured he'll tell you he shats gold.

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Originally Posted by X

​I used to fight at welterweight and I met a young guy last week who is a current amateur welterweight - he was nearly 6 foot tall and looked like a big middleweight to me!

No way are we th same weight division, so these era by era comparisons are flawed at the lighter weights to be honest.

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I guess that's something that's glossed over or not added to the equation. It almost becomes a P4P debate. I don't know if they did in ring weights back then but the assumption would have to be that Hagler would be a fair bit smaller than GGG on the night. Picking up on what Spicoli said about past generations just being a bit tougher. I'd go along with that to an extent. Again like the Lewis arguement or any era V era arguement, it's kind of a blanket statement in that everyone was tougher, they were all made of sterner stuff and that gets thrown into the mix. If environment back then is a factor in making a case. So is environment now and sub heavyweight, fighters from the past would be up against far bigger fighters than they would have at the time.

I generally steer away from any discussion of past vs present fantasy match up, all time rankings, lbs for lbs debates etc for a number of reasons.
My boxing knowledge only goes back so far. I'm in my early-mid 30s so I remember watching Eubank-Benn, Bruno and Naz as a kid in the 90s, and was aware of the likes of Tyson, Holyfied and Lewis having fights in the states. They were out of reach on Sky ppv, something I never had back then. And it wasn't until I got into uni when I began to actually take a proper interest in things around 2005.

I'm aware of some of the history, the big players from decades past, but actually watching of old classic fights is limited. So there's only so much I could argue a case in these fantasy matches.

One of the big ones in recent years was the belief of many that the Klitschkos were only dominating a very piss poor division and that they wouldn't have stood up to the previous more golden years. My estimation was that they were infact a whole new animal and would have competed wth and maybe even beaten the greats of the past who were pretty small for the division in modern terms.

There has to be some truths to both sides of the arguements though.

Fighters of yesteryear would have many more fights than todays top tier guys, they would fight more dangerous opponents due to more limited number of titles and so less cherry picking.

But todays athletes are ultimately more enhanced in their training, and we have more knowledge these days in science than back then. Advancements in techinques, strategies and game plans etc.
There's a very good arguement for pretty much all sports that the standards of the modern day is better than decades gone by.

I'm not sure I agree there mate. Take your example then, but go even further back to (say) Larry Holmes in the late 70's and early 80's.

Are you saying that techniques, strategies and game plans would have suddenly and quickly evolved in the 20 years between Holmes and Klitschko ..... when humans had already been boxing for thousands of years?

Average human size has certainly changed, I would agree with you there, but it's a bit arrogant of us to think previous generations were somehow less physically gifted, intelligent or capable than those people we see on HD resolution TV.

You could argue that the same mindset convinced people that dinosaurs were huge, slow, lumbering and very stupid animals that moved in slow motion ... but it seems they were not?

A few good points in there. There's a cut off point to all of our boxing knowledge isn't there. In these kind of debates, some people want to ignore that an wax lyrical about fighters they've never seen, not at the time at least. OK you can paint a picture, make links to more modern fighters. But your opinion is largely given to you rather than formed yourself over time. Some people are happy to steer clear as you said. I cant really say because I wasn't around, didn't follow boxing etc.. Some people, and these will be the ones that want to sound knowledgeable, dive in and rubbish the contemporary fighters chances because, well everyone else does.

The Klitschko's is a good shout. Was their era great? The consensus would be no. But again, give or take a couple of names it was every bit as good as Lewis's for me. People will talk about the loses for each of them, Wlad more so because of their nature and the general thinking that he was the less sturdy of the brothers, fair comment on that. People will happily rubbish Wlad because of a few dodgy heavy losses, yet laud Lewis who has equally embarrassing heavy defeats against opposition that was no better. Again, give Wlad or Vitali Lewis's career, I don't see it panning out much differently.

The modern boxer and how he trains, prepares is an interesting one to me. Obviously people now are far more savvy about what they eat, what they supplement that with, what physical activity to do. What's the end product? Are boxers now all super fit machines that can go full tilt for 36 minutes every fight with a perfectly evolved technique? I think the answer to that one lies somewhere in the middle. Both past and present would benefit from what the other does, or rather had to do. Modern day fighters would benefit from being in the ring more. To a point, past fighters probably from being in the ring a bit less.

A jab, right cross, left hook have remained unchanged for a long time. OK there might be minor nuances to it from certain individuals. But the mechanics have remained largely untouched, some might say technical coaching has gone backwards. So the benefits of modern science are possibly bottlenecked to a degree in comparison to something like tennis, where the thing they use has come on leaps and bounds over years. Bigger, stronger faster tennis players can impart all that science into and through a (what are they made of now?) modern racket and play shots with greater force and accuracy that the older players of not a million years ago simply couldn't with the wooden racket. A glove is a glove. Yes they've changed, but not as an extension of the fighter in the way that a racket or bat has. To that end I'd probably lean towards the older fighters in terms of how they did things. The technical elements have remained the same, they just did it more. The modern boxer isn't being taught anything alien to the boxer of the past when it comes to how to box.

Memphis, people have changed. Not fighters but people in general.

Food quality has decreased. Couch potatoes have increased.

Marvin Hagler REEMS GGG 7 days to Sunday.

Based on what? You’re doing the exact thing I’m talking about Brock. I would have expected you to go that way to be fair but it’s nonsense.

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Originally Posted by X

I'm not sure I agree there mate. Take your example then, but go even further back to (say) Larry Holmes in the late 70's and early 80's.

Are you saying that techniques, strategies and game plans would have suddenly and quickly evolved in the 20 years between Holmes and Klitschko ..... when humans had already been boxing for thousands of years?

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Originally Posted by Memphis

The modern boxer and how he trains, prepares is an interesting one to me. Obviously people now are far more savvy about what they eat, what they supplement that with, what physical activity to do. What's the end product? Are boxers now all super fit machines that can go full tilt for 36 minutes every fight with a perfectly evolved technique? I think the answer to that one lies somewhere in the middle. Both past and present would benefit from what the other does, or rather had to do. Modern day fighters would benefit from being in the ring more. To a point, past fighters probably from being in the ring a bit less.

A jab, right cross, left hook have remained unchanged for a long time. OK there might be minor nuances to it from certain individuals. But the mechanics have remained largely untouched, some might say technical coaching has gone backwards. So the benefits of modern science are possibly bottlenecked to a degree in comparison to something like tennis, where the thing they use has come on leaps and bounds over years. Bigger, stronger faster tennis players can impart all that science into and through a (what are they made of now?) modern racket and play shots with greater force and accuracy that the older players of not a million years ago simply couldn't with the wooden racket. A glove is a glove. Yes they've changed, but not as an extension of the fighter in the way that a racket or bat has. To that end I'd probably lean towards the older fighters in terms of how they did things. The technical elements have remained the same, they just did it more. The modern boxer isn't being taught anything alien to the boxer of the past when it comes to how to box.

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You fellas are probably about right. Boxing is something of a primitive art, whereas other sports such as the example of tennis could look to the advancement of equipment as a major factor for modern athletes being superior.

Alghough take modern football, which is hard to gauge since its a team sport but it also a pretty primative sport. The debate on who is the greatest footballer is GENERALLY between two current/active players (Ronaldo and Messi). Players of today are generally considered better than their counterparts of yesteryear as the game is now played at a faster pace etc etc.
Records in athletics for the most part don't hold for more than a couple of decades. Some of the longer ones going back around 30 years. But they are reflective that athletes perform better over time.

It's a very hard debate! ;D

Reminds me of the old sketch. I forget who did it. “You can’t expect a man who plays football full time to achieve the same level of fitness as a man who works in a chip shop six days a week and plays on Sunday”.

I think on the whole we can agree that footballers are technically better and fitter than those past. Footballers past. Tougher for sure.

Athletics is a straight forward one too based on how it’s measured. Time and distance. Science has made running faster and jumping/throwing further easier, but it’s observable over time. Again you’ve got that levelling the playing field aspect but I think it’s fair to say that on the whole people can run faster, jump higher etc.

Every sport in history has progressed apart from boxing which has drastically regressed. It's a silly/lazy argument, for obvious reasons (like scoring, it's all in the eye of the beholder, no concrete facts and figures).

I fully get the rose tinted glasses lark, i'm just as guilty, forever thinking so-and-so from the 90s would have murdered this or that "champ." But it's not the truth. The truth is, in all likelihood, the best fighters in any era would hold their own with each other.

I think Lennox irons out Joshua but he lost to fighters who Joshua irons (obviously not McCall, impossible, but you get the drift).

Well, why arent cricket bowlers the fastest and best there has ever been? Same ball, same grass, same distance .... but (following previous arguments), bigger guys, better training, better science etc etc

There are some good ones around, but nobody of the calibre of Holding, Marshall, Garner, Ambrose, Lille's, Thompson, Larwood, Akhtar, Khan, Dev, Donald etc?

More importantly, why has nobody surpassed the penis size of the legendary King Dong?

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Originally Posted by Memphis

We've done this before of course and this isn't aimed at 'us' as such, but more so 'the other' boxing fans. You know the one's, Facebook, Twitter and all that lark. We're smarter than them ;D I know we're not going to get any definitive answers but we rarely do on anything so why let that stop us?

The inability to give present day fighters a hope in hell against their counterparts from eras past. Why is that? Genuine belief that past fighters were better? A desire to sound knowledgeable about past fighters? A complete inability to think for ones self so go with the status quo?

Probably a bit of all three right?

I got no problem with someone thinking a fighter from the past beats a present day one. I'll use the example I used in another thread. Joshua V Lewis. No issue at all with anyone saying Lewis wipes the floor with Joshua. Probably go along with that. But this idea that Lewis operated on an entirely different level to Joshua, Fury, Wilder etc... That's the nonsense part. What's even more nonsensical is the idea that that he had to operate on a different level because they all were back then. Crazy talk.

As an aside. Hagler V Golovkin. Comes up all the time. You'll see them swarm all over Facebook and Twitter. Hagler eats Golovkin alive!!!!!! Get fucked! All the love in the World for Marvin. But ain't no way anyone is eating Golovkin alive. Beats him on points in a war of biblical proportions? I'm ok with that. But fuck off with this beats him easily or inside the distance.

When looking at this I never look at A versus B. That's not the question being asked and besides that, we've already covered it by consensus. Lewis would beat Joshua. Done, easy. I look at A versus who B fought.

The question is could Joshua, Fury, Wilder etc....have competed in Lewis's era. The answer is an easy yes. Replace Lennox Lewis with Anthony Joshua throughout Lewis's career. How different is it? Maybe loses the Klitschko fight? Maybe Holyfield? Aside from those two I don't see there being a whole lot of difference if any at all.

The deck is always loaded against the contemporary fighter. Half a career stacked up against an illustrious, all time great fighters complete career, hardly fair is it? To compound it more, a serious set of rose tinted glasses are generally used to look at the past fighters record. Rank average fighters become good solid contenders. In this particular example we'll hear how good Bruno was, how tough Mercer was, how murderous a puncher Ruddock was.

How would Joshua, Fury, Wilder, Whyte fair against Lewis, Holyfield, Bowe, Tyson? You might get a generous to the new boys 3-1 score line. More likely a 4-0 sweep for the old boys. Again, the deck is loaded for the old boys, we're immediately seeing a peak (even though he was far from) Mike Tyson rampaging through the four of them on the same night.

Stick the contemporary fighters into the mix in the late 90's early 00's. Would they dominate? No. Would they be out of their depth because the era back then was so good? Fuck off!

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Good thread..... topic never gets old. ;D


I don't think you went far enough, though. There are those who wax poetic about fighters from a century ago... the black and white, grainy film days. Maybe for one of the three reasons bolded above.

If you only go as far back as Lewis, Bowe, Hagler, Hearns, etc..... you're going back to a not-so-distant past, at least in boxing terms. Styles and skills were very similar to what they are now. Same with the rules of the sport.

But to your point about Joshua vs Lewis....... Golovkin vs Hagler......... totally agree. Hagler is an ATG, IMO. But to say he sweeps the floor with Golovkin is both a disrespect of GGG's skillset, and a curious lack of perspective.

The part about the past I have a bit of a problem with is the one about these B&W, grainy heroes being superior to the fighters of today.... a view not held by a majority but certainly by some.

Again... probably for one of the reasons stated above.... but I'll add one of my own.

There's a certainly sanctity about some of the ATGs from the B&W grainy days that doesn't allow us to think they may have been out of their depth if placed into today's environment. That's where it becomes dicey.

All we can do is really just compare those fighters in their own eras of dominance.

A lot of it is this curious inability to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time, as though everything were either one thing or the other and complexity and nuance do not exist. Diets, Lifestyles, Training,etc has changed massively but their impact is not some traceable constant line going up or down.

Boxing itself has changed and that will favour some more than others. Take something as simple as the reduction of rounds. For a fighter whose stamina and ability to execute game plans over a longer time frame when an explosive fighter might well have emptied the well, those missing rounds will of course make an impact. The awareness and ability to prevent injuries is another difference in the modern game. Of course it is still there, and there will be few fighters who do not spend their careers fighting with unmentioned injuries that make them less than 100%, but the more sophisticated monitoring and treatment plans will help keep the modern fighter less damaged than guys who fought more often and many times for less money, exasperating existing injuries because they could not afford to take the break their body needed. We live in a world with far more distractions, but also less solid traditional support networks, (family, Religions, Community networks, institutions etc) and you can see that in the insecurity in many people now., despite all the emotional baggage of a life of violence being addressed more psychologically with counseling and 'being a man' no longer having to mean bottling it all up and taking it out on the bottle or some poor woman.

A great fighter is a great fighter in any era, but you cannot pretend that fighters from different eras would cope just as well in either the past or future. I think you have to address it on a case by case basis.

There are so many variables between the past and present that it is a really hard thing to compare. Depending on how deep you are going, it is not as simple as picking out 1 fighter from this night to another fighter on another night.

Things like length of training camps, how long before previous bouts, weigh in etc. Even dedication and focus. Some fighters today have many distractions outside the ring. How would an old timer react to today's society and vice versa.

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Originally Posted by Alpha

There are so many variables between the past and present that it is a really hard thing to compare. Depending on how deep you are going, it is not as simple as picking out 1 fighter from this night to another fighter on another night.

Things like length of training camps, how long before previous bouts, weigh in etc. Even dedication and focus. Some fighters today have many distractions outside the ring. How would an old timer react to today's society and vice versa.

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Agreed. I try to see how certain fighters would fit into other eras. For example, for as great as Mayweather was, could he have been considered as great back in the 40’s or 50’s? I say that because he has a long history of hand problems and he wouldn’t get the rest he needed. If his hands started to be a problem, he would start to lose fights that he shouldn’t.

In an opposite view, maybe some fighters who were very durable had much more of an advantage because they were able to keep fighting at a good pace throughout their career and could catch many great fighters on bad days. Maybe these old durable fighters wouldn’t do as well if that advantage was gone because their opponents always got training camps to come in in tip top shape.

I think all eras have their advantages and disadvantages. One thing I’ve heard that I like is that great athletes find a way to win no matter what. So I think great fighters in any era would most likely be successful in all eras.