Quote Originally Posted by Beanflicker View Post
Quote Originally Posted by powerpuncher View Post
The biggest question is if these fighters bodies could hold up. For example, could Floyd's hands handle that many fights even against weak competition? I know his hands get a lot of special treatment. Then it is worth asking how many old fighters weren't able to make it just because of their inability to stay healthy?
Floyd, Manny, ect would have eaten those same opponents alive, too. They were experienced, but they really were weak competition for a guy of Armstrong's caliber, and with the quick KO's I doubt he broke a sweat in most of those fights. Guys like Floyd and Manny have tougher sparring sessions I would imagine. In Floyd's heyday, he sparred 9-12 minute rounds for stamina, against better fighters than that. I never did understand the fascination with quantity over quality and I guess I never will, but I don't believe that those guys who fought more often against shitty opposition did anything that modern greats like Floyd, Manny, ect wouldn't have been able to do.

I'm more interested in knowing how they scheduled the fights. Did Armstrong have all those fights booked in advance with dates etched in stone? Or did he dispatch of an opponent quickly and tell his promoter "I feel good, I can fight again on Friday."
true but many of them weren't bums. And they didn't get the time to really nurse injuries. Most fighters couldn't get a personal assistant to give them manicures like Floyd does.

I understand that sparring is kind of a secret thing many times but you do hear every once in a while how the sparring partner gets the better of the main fighter. I'm not sure how frequent that happens. I'm mentioning this because I'm wondering if it's equivalent. How many times do fighters have bad days in training? Then could you pretty easily have a bad fight if you are fighting so many times? It's a lot easier to lose to a lesser fighter because of that. Obviously it's all speculation.