Quote Originally Posted by greynotsoold View Post
There is a lot of stuff that Roach teaches that is not 'old', for example, turning over punches. he tends to the pick them up, turn them over then throw them school of thought.
And a great many skills are lost (Miller did not teach Roach, by the way. You must be thinking of Eddie Futch). A lot of this is because great trainers did not pass on their skills. A lot of it is because guys take the easy way out- I think that is just human nature. You can see this in the the footwork modern fighters use, the way they throw their punches, their defensive liabilities. For example- the essence of boxing is counterpunching. Today the emphasis is on keeping one's hands high is a position that makes it hard to punch back, but that is easier because of the larger gloves.
You see many fighters doing everything off the front foot- by that I mean, powering their left hand punches by pushing off and never getting the weight onto the rear foot- or with thier feet too far apart. These things affect your ability to move, to defend, to throw good combinations, to move after you punch. In the ring, with me wearing punch mitts and catching your punches, if your feet are like that, I can move you off your balance, keep you from moving. Yet it is taught that way.
Yeah I appreciate some of the points your saying here but a lot of those things are present today and it's your pure speculation that it's because these skills are lost.

Vitali Klitschko has a back foot style, he was taught by a German trainer!

There are countless counterpunchers.

And don't tell me about defence because it is only in the last 30 years that boxers REALLY learned HOW to defend properly.

A far more likely scenario, is that the sport has evolved and that some of the previous skills have been emphasised which are more important and some of those skills have been de-emphasised because they were not!