Quote Originally Posted by Beanflicker View Post
I don't think they fight too often.

People bring up the old guys fighting 200 times (and several times a month) like it's the way it should be, like it was a good thing.

I think the amount of times those old guys had to fight was just a sad indication of the times. Do you think SRR wanted to fight several times a month? He had to, because the promoters and the mob took most of the money and you couldn't make as much off of one fight obviously as you can now with PPV.

Boxing is a dangerous, dehibilitating sport, and we should want our favorite boxers to retire and have a great quality of life and not end up pugilistic dementia like guys like SRR, Dempsey, Louis, ect ect ended up with.

I think 40-50 fights with multiple titles is a great career. Yeah 200 fights looks good, but that was a different (worse) time.

Floyd could go on little "tours" and fight bums in each state a couple times a month like the old guys did, but who would be interested in that now adays?

Valid points but a bit of a broad brush. Yes fighters fought much more in other eras and yes in many cases it was simply to literally put food on the table and pay rent but I do think that hard times makes better fighters both in and out of the ring.

Other factors need to be taken into account though. For instance Langford fought Wills about 20 times because he could not get fights. The same can be said about the entire Murdrers Row. They had to fight each other lots because the establishment would not embrace them. Robinson would not even fight them although he did fight Marshall after Lloyd was essentially done.

Another factor is that only 1 belt existed not 25 so the drive was there and legacy had a meaning. Today it’s a bunch of tin pots who all claim to be world champions and for the most part staying away from each other.

Greb fought 45 times in one year once and it was not a tour bus. Stribling fought more then that once and sure boxing was a "job" more so then today but these guys wanted to fight. P4P actually meant something then to. Langford was a short middle at best and yet knocked out almost every hev of his day including Wills, Mcvey and Jeannette. Probably the first man to introduce the shoulder roll and would fight the last part of his career pretty much blind.

Greb beat 7 world light heavy champions, dominated the middleweight division and beat several contending heavyweights and finished his career blind in one eye. He only lost 11 times in 300 fights and was only stopped twice, once because his arm was broken.

Today if you lose or get knocked out you are almost written off or tossed to the recycling bin but in past eras a loss was looked on almost as a badge of honour.

@Beanflicker. I know what you mean man, we history buffs can go a little overboard at times in comparisons but the differences from the past and today as far as attitude goes is really quite striking.
The difference between risk and reward as applied today and how it was applied in other eras even as early as the mid 80's almost has its own taste. Point well taken though as all one has to do is look at Leonards 40 fights. His resume stacks up to almost anyone in history quality wise.