Quote Originally Posted by Spicoli View Post
I get where your coming from to a degree. Living it and seeing it is believing and like every aspect of day to day, we evolve, times change, we learn the value of thumbs etc. I def don't think he or anyone one would go killing today's fighters but likewise Leonard wouldn't be like some Neanderthal seeing a burning bush for the first time. He always struck me as ahead of his time and certainly wasn't a clubbing oof. The guy could box and very well. Unlike a Greb where we can only speculate, we're fortunate to have footage however "old". Looking past the grain and black & white its as clear as day. Its one lifetime ago not a complete relic found in ice. Its touchable. Science, nutrition, rules, boxing politricks etc have certainly changed. More so when talking Whitaker, Holyfield camp. under water weight resistance training ffs?! Training habits as well but where guys work in a gym or swat training pads much more today, fighters simply fought fights then. Something to be said for the constant activity level then. They'd look at those giant pillows and a 10-12 round cap among other things and scoff. As advanced as we fancy ourselves and as far as they've come it's still the hurt business and even the slickest have a ill caveman at the core. It's what pulled Whitaker out of the fire once or twice himself. Today's fighters and the ever growing number of spoon fed divas could learn ALOT from fighters of old. In the ring as well as outside of it.

Yeah, it'll always be hard to compare because they are just completely different worlds.

I do think that the fact that old timer's fought more often gets overblown in terms of importance. While I do agree that it gave guys more experience to perfect their craft... in terms of quality of opponents, these HUGE resumes are padded with stiffs, complete throwaway fights. Ray Robinson won 173 fights, which is a crazy number for sure, but how many of those 173 fights were top-quality opponents? I'd go out on a limb and say it's a very small fraction. Guys had to fight 200 times because they had to, not because they were brave he-men who wanted to. If SRR or Benny Leonard could have made a couple million for one fight, they'd only fight once or twice a year too.