A lot of it is this curious inability to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time, as though everything were either one thing or the other and complexity and nuance do not exist. Diets, Lifestyles, Training,etc has changed massively but their impact is not some traceable constant line going up or down.
Boxing itself has changed and that will favour some more than others. Take something as simple as the reduction of rounds. For a fighter whose stamina and ability to execute game plans over a longer time frame when an explosive fighter might well have emptied the well, those missing rounds will of course make an impact. The awareness and ability to prevent injuries is another difference in the modern game. Of course it is still there, and there will be few fighters who do not spend their careers fighting with unmentioned injuries that make them less than 100%, but the more sophisticated monitoring and treatment plans will help keep the modern fighter less damaged than guys who fought more often and many times for less money, exasperating existing injuries because they could not afford to take the break their body needed. We live in a world with far more distractions, but also less solid traditional support networks, (family, Religions, Community networks, institutions etc) and you can see that in the insecurity in many people now., despite all the emotional baggage of a life of violence being addressed more psychologically with counseling and 'being a man' no longer having to mean bottling it all up and taking it out on the bottle or some poor woman.
A great fighter is a great fighter in any era, but you cannot pretend that fighters from different eras would cope just as well in either the past or future. I think you have to address it on a case by case basis.
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