Quote Originally Posted by Lyle
Quote Originally Posted by landmine950
cc for ya mick for the effort of the post...(even tho you called me an assh0le) LOL

I'm always against the old "rose colored glasses" view of older fighters
Best all time...."at the time?" or compared to fighters right now?

To me its like if a guy won the 1940 1500 meter Olympic race by 3 seconds.. the biggest margin ever....so he was WAAYYY better than anyone .......THEN...
BUT! his winning time in 1940 is now 50th place in all time 1500m races.......
If he ran in the Olymics today in 2007, he'd come in dead last...by 3 seconds.


So is he the best ever? or 50th best?

maybe its because I look at things from a more quantatative viewpoint....I say he's 50th.

How would Rocky Marciano, Ali, Joe Lewis do against the best in 2007?
IMO 1st round KO
Unpopular viewpoint?....It's Ok I'm getting used to it.....
Now as for what they contributed to boxing or popularity or the greatness of the fights? WHOLE different story..
Well by that rational with today's advances in nutrition, healthcare, training, and so on I'd say Rocky and Louis would do rather well and you're big F****** freak of a fighter Valuev would get KO'd by Primo Carnera
I think I understand what your saying.... Put ali in a time machine and have him born in 1980 so he's 27 today.. another totally different scenario..hard to say. For sure they would be WAYY better than they were.....what about the steroid issue? how much of that is going on today? some guys get caught. how many don't?

Boxing, like any sport is far bigger than it was in the "old" days
I say the larger the talent pool.. the smaller the star.
Its the old big fish in the small pond becomes the small fish in the ocean.
Well smallerER for sure.
todays boxing pool is an ocean of hard core proffesionals compared to 1940-60.