Duran : In My Era, Mayweather Would Have Been Ordinary

[justaguy]

Fact is, we don't know.

Training looks a lot different now... different techniques, different philosophies, and different science to the sport. It is close to impossible to say who would have done what in what era.

When we look at boxing IQ and beating the man in front of you - which is all that a boxer can be asked to do - fighters today would have done just fine against fighters back in the day. The Klits would have held their own - they are HUGE compared to many of the ATG heavyweight champs. Those guys would have never seen the likes of them. But does that mean the innate skills are the same? No.

Fighters in Duran's day fought at least two to three times a year - most fought more. That's not the case anymore... if all of these guys fought more often and TRULY had to clear out a division, would they be undefeated? Doubtful. But I have no doubt that they would hold their own.

lol U make it sound like Duran fought in the 30s or something. All the methods you mentioned hasn't evolved all that much since Duran's era.. If anything, it has regressed..

You want to talk about conditioning? Fighters back then were conditioned to go 15 hard rounds and Duran certainly had no problems with it..

Technique did u say? We can argue that fighters back were superior in that area as well.. They were more skilled in terms of Inside-fighting, body punching and combination punching ..

Some of these techniques are a lost art in today's boxing.

Boxing and Baseball are two sports that hasn't evolved much..

I didn't mention methods... I mentioned that there are techniques that were not evident then and philosophies that were not common then. For the most part, I would agree that the contenders are not what they were... but I would not say that the REAL champs in the weight classes are still pretty darned good and tough to compare to previous champs from previous eras. They are faster, stronger, and have the older guys to look at for ideas of how to do what they do.

Duran wasn't from the 30's, but I would say that fighters are stronger and faster now than in the 80's - wouldn't you? Nutrition programs, supplements, and weight lifting techniques/philosophies have definitely changed. I would absolutely say that there are less fighters that could go 15 now than before, but they are not expected to. I would argue that if there were still 15 round fights, you would have more fighters that could go 15.

Duran's hands were fast and he hit hard... harder than Shane Mosley? Harder than Manny? I don't know and there's no way for me to know. Larry Holmes was skilled and could beat a lot of heavies in his day... could he beat Lennox Lewis (basically one or maybe two generations of fighters later)? Wlad? Vitali? I honestly don't know. He never saw fighters that had hands as fast as those guys at that size.

My point is only that fighters adapt to the age that they are in. Every so often, you get guys that stand out. At the lower weights, you have a ton of guys who have skills that are not champions - and then you have your guys who are great for every era.

I think Floyd is much better than an ordinary fighter in the 70's and 80's - he is very smart and adaptable in the ring. The title of the article is ridiculous. If he said that Floyd wouldn't have been undefeated, I can go with that.

[IamInuit]

I think Floyd is much better than an ordinary fighter in the 70's and 80's - he is very smart and adaptable in the ring. The title of the article is ridiculous. If he said that Floyd wouldn't have been undefeated, I can go with that.

Exactly and that will probably be the one thing other then the phantom fight that historians will hold against him. His inactivity levels. However I suppose one has to take into account that he made on average 20 million dollars a fight while guys like Montiel never got a 7 figure payday until he fought Donaire. People keep accusing him of ducking but it simply cant be shown. Would other fighters have fought as much as they did earning that kind of money? No way to show that w/o a time machine. Had he been in the era of the fab 4 or 5 he most likely would have fought all of them or most of them.
I don't think he'd fare all that well against Duran at 135 but when you see how Duran struggled against Benitez its certainly not far fetched that he would struggle with Floyd at 147 or 154.