The Old-Timers would destroy the New Guys

[Dark Lord Al]

agreed.

@Dark Lord Al

Al you crazy old boy, answer me this mate: Would Tyson Fury be able to beat a prime sonny Liston?

Tyson Fury can barely beat a drum.

[brocktonblockbust]

agreed.

@<a href="http://www.saddoboxing.com/boxingforum/member.php?u=11999" target="_blank">Dark Lord Al</a>

Al you crazy old boy, answer me this mate: Would Tyson Fury be able to beat a prime sonny Liston?

You say the fugin Klits. You din say nutin bout no fugin Tyson Fury fugin pussy.

Fury is the Cream de la Cream. he sucks it down good. haha

@maxpower

dude seriously, LIston would destroy with his jab alone EITHER Klit. Sonny in his prime, a magnificient victory over a very large, high-ranked man: ONLY a Cassius Clay 22 year old can stop a force like this

[Max Power]

I've seen that one before. And it serves to show that even in this tribute which is supposed to showcase Liston, he is...

(a) slow as a wet wig
(b) uncoordinated
(c) lacking in fundamental skills
(d) utterly ridiculous.

The correct disposition for Liston is..

He dominated over a division filled with cruiserweights OR bums OR a combination thereof OR caught decent opponents on heavy loss streaks.

AND

What a pathetic champion that he could not even defeat a 22 year old cruiserweight named Cassius Clay with no power and fundamentally poor skills! But then again we can barely blame Liston because both fights were shady (Liston retired with a fucked shoulder and then took a dive because his family were threatened) and Liston was likely very old by then.

If you don't swallow the dive thing then you are admitting that Liston has a jaw so glassy that it makes Morrison and Klitschko's chin look like steel!

So we can SEE that 210lb Liston is far slower and imo of otherwise comparable technique (I think Fury even looks better personally, Liston doesn't move and can't even keep his hands up). That's pretty sad that a HW champ from the golden era is slower than a fighter 50lbs heavier!! But somehow this guy is going to outdo the Klitschko's, 2 of the best jabbers in history by slow motion left hand paws from Liston??

You didn't REALLY swallow that story about Liston did you? His jab had some moments to be sure but "Best jab of all time" or near to it is romantic hogwash from an era long gone.

Same with his power... Completely overrated. He could outpunch Chris Byrd I've no doubt or Eddie Chambers but he could not match a REAL modern HW puncher.

One of Liston's best win opponents is Patterson... P.A.T.T.E.R.S.O.N! A man who would struggle in amateur boxing today, look at him!

Back in Liston's day boxing was only a rudimentary sport, not fully complete and worked out yet. Today it is a globalised and professional sport.

[Beanflicker]

Any of the old guys would have killed the new guys because the old guys fought a lot more which meant they had more time to get better at boxing.

A guy who fought 10 times is gonna be better than a guy who fought 1 time and a guy who fought a 100 times (greb) is gonna be better than a guy who fought >50 times (Mayweather) and that's a scientific fact, I don't know how anyone would argue that.

People always argue who was the best boxer of all time and names like SRR, Greb, Leonard, Duran, Whitaker, ect get brought up. All of those answers are just a product of ignorance.

Len Wickwar was the greatest fighter of all time because he fought nearly 500 times. Can you imagine how much boxing knowledge he had after his last fight? At that point he could kill a man with one punch, which is why I think he had to stop.

[Beanflicker]

I've seen that one before. And it serves to show that even in this tribute which is supposed to showcase Liston, he is...

(a) slow as a wet wig
(b) uncoordinated
(c) lacking in fundamental skills
(d) utterly ridiculous.

The correct disposition for Liston is..

He dominated over a division filled with cruiserweights OR bums OR a combination thereof OR caught decent opponents on heavy loss streaks.

AND

What a pathetic champion that he could not even defeat a 22 year old cruiserweight named Cassius Clay with no power and fundamentally poor skills! But then again we can barely blame Liston because both fights were shady (Liston retired with a fucked shoulder and then took a dive because his family were threatened) and Liston was likely very old by then.

If you don't swallow the dive thing then you are admitting that Liston has a jaw so glassy that it makes Morrison and Klitschko's chin look like steel!

So we can SEE that 210lb Liston is far slower and imo of otherwise comparable technique (I think Fury even looks better personally, Liston doesn't move and can't even keep his hands up). That's pretty sad that a HW champ from the golden era is slower than a fighter 50lbs heavier!! But somehow this guy is going to outdo the Klitschko's, 2 of the best jabbers in history by slow motion left hand paws from Liston??

You didn't REALLY swallow that story about Liston did you? His jab had some moments to be sure but "Best jab of all time" or near to it is romantic hogwash from an era long gone.

Same with his power... Completely overrated. He could outpunch Chris Byrd I've no doubt or Eddie Chambers but he could not match a REAL modern HW puncher.

One of Liston's best win opponents is Patterson... P.A.T.T.E.R.S.O.N! A man who would struggle in amateur boxing today, look at him!

Back in Liston's day boxing was only a rudimentary sport, not fully complete and worked out yet. Today it is a globalised and professional sport.

Good post and you should also mention that Sonny Liston only fought 54 times and thats really not enough times to get good at anything.

You can't get good at anything worthwhile doing it only 54 times. If Jimi Hendrix only played a guitar 54 times nobody would have went to see him or listened to his records because he would have stunk.

Archie Moore fought over 200 times and would have killed Liston

[Max Power]

Well no beans I'm not sure of that either.

Actually it's a complicated response this time because, experience definitely IS the major ingredient in getting better at boxing (as well as other things too) but the number of fights period does not always tell the whole story. You see for a start, how many fights at a certain weight range tells a different story to how many fights at another. One of the main reasons I am so stubbord regarding the modern HW's (and I'd extend that to other weight ranges somewhat too considering their size compared to their olden counterparts) is that what was historically called a "HW" would now be called a CW or even a light HW.

When we look at David Hayes HW record today for instance we view it as only a handful of fights and look at it compared to Muhammad's record and think well he's not even a HW. But in reality, Muhammad's record in ACTUAL HW fights is only 28-4, the rest being sub 200, and because of modern day dehydration to weigh in, a lot of Haye's CW fights were not only HW fights in Ali's day.. By fight time they in fact WERE 200+ fights even in our times!!!

Obviously when you look at these guys records, including Listons, they just don't cut the mustard compared with today. It's also a neat explaination whenever anybody mentions "workrate" or "speed" in disrespect to modern fighters because OF COURSE they should perform better here because the modern guy is a couple of weight ranges above them!! Except we don't really see that, in the case of Liston, we can barely find ANY boxer who is slower!!!

But the plot thickens, and it's to do with modern methods...

Modern boxers, in general, you will find special examples otherwise, but the norm, is that modern boxers have much more amateur experience, PLUS have enormous amounts more sparring and pad work, so in fact they DO have more ring time, training and experience than the old timers, not just in weight range, but in total!

But most importantly.. It is utterly BS that the old timers way of fighting so frequently produced better boxers! They were not trained properly in that time for each fight and they did not recover between each fight properly. It was detrimental to their performance completely!

Evander Holyfield was once asked to givwe a speech on how past champions were the better and so on.. But as he gave the interview he swayed from the script. He told that how modern boxers were trained far better than they were in the past, how they did not have to fight as often anymore but because of their management and preparation they were doubly effective, and anybody who says otherwise is someone who did not have to fight against that kind of opposition.

I think Evander was right!

Also, as a pretty important side note, it can be shown that the heavier the weight of a fighter and their opposition in general, the fewer fights they can withstand. A featherweight can obviously fight more than a heavyweight because the punches are lighter and more bearable.

At HW the damage is maximal. In the old days a HW had more fights in general because their competition was not what we today consider HW. Today the punches are so hard that it's inconceivable that any fighter could withstand 100 fights at HW!

That kind of puts into perspective, all of it, just how special dominant HW champs are today to have had so many fights as they have.

[Beanflicker]

How could a guy with 50 fights compete with a guy with 200 fights it's damn near impossible!

[Max Power]

Well what is the quality of the opponents that that 200 fight guy fought. No modern fighter has 200 fights but for example I would stack up 45 fight Floyd against 200 fight Robinson no worries.

And I don't put it like it would be competitive, I would seriously be surprised if Robinson would land even a single meaningful punch the entire fight!

[FinitoElDinamita]

Well what is the quality of the opponents that that 200 fight guy fought. No modern fighter has 200 fights but for example I would stack up 45 fight Floyd against 200 fight Robinson no worries.

And I don't put it like it would be competitive, I would seriously be surprised if Robinson would land even a single meaningful punch the entire fight!

Robinson and Leonard.. who is better? Id like your professional take..

[Max Power]

Leonard definitely.

Faster, fitter, stronger, more technical (defensive and cleaner punching).

Leonard probably all round one of the best. Deserves his rep of "all time".

[Beanflicker]

Well what is the quality of the opponents that that 200 fight guy fought. No modern fighter has 200 fights but for example I would stack up 45 fight Floyd against 200 fight Robinson no worries.

And I don't put it like it would be competitive, I would seriously be surprised if Robinson would land even a single meaningful punch the entire fight!

I don't think so man, one thing that you have to consider is that times were much tougher back then, boxers didn't have luxuries and distractions like fighters had after 1980. Times were tough which made for a much tougher man both mentally and physically. All there was to do back then was fight or read a newspaper or book, so if you weren't keen on reading you were more likely throwing hands whenever you had the chance.

That's one of the reasons a modern great would get eaten alive if brought back in a time machine to the good old days. They are too pampered and would probably cry without their Twitter LOL

[Max Power]

I'll grant you people might have been tougher back in those days, you cannot measure some things. But I don't think that made them better at sports, even combat sports.

[Beanflicker]

I'll grant you people might have been tougher back in those days, you cannot measure some things. But I don't think that made them better at sports, even combat sports.

No man I saw a statistic that says the average American spends 3 hours on social media alone (thats not counting youtube, pornography, ect). So when you factor that in and also allot for TV and Netflix, on average I'd say the old timers spent about 10 hours a day honing their boxing more than the current boxers do.

[Max Power]

I disagree, I do not think professional fighters are "NORMAL" people today. When I fought amateur I was not a normal person. I trained every single day for a few hours and even lost a couple of jobs because of it. Today's pros you must know, don't work and then train, they live it from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed because they have to... That IS their job!

[Beanflicker]

I disagree, I do not think professional fighters are "NORMAL" people today. When I fought amateur I was not a normal person. I trained every single day for a few hours and even lost a couple of jobs because of it. Today's pros you must know, don't work and then train, they live it from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed because they have to... That IS their job!

How dare you poke holes in my logic. I oughta slap your face!