Why is The Boxing Community so Nostalgic Compared to Other Sports Communities?

[BattlingNelson]

Yes, you should statistically find more talent among the 1000 wannabes than the 10 ares. That is your argument, and it would be ****** to disagree with a mathematically sound argument.

I understand the argument. But if the 1000 guys are scattered among poor third world countries with few or no boxing programs, almost ALL of them will get their butts whipped by the 10 guys, talent notwithstanding, because the 10 guys live where boxing is dense, trainers are geniuses, equipment is marvelous and sparring is abundant, and those 1000 guys don't. That is why they all want to come here. Once they do, the 10 guys are not the favorites anymore for long.

But the point is that expert boxing takes stiffer and more educated competition to get there, not just more sparring mates.. You won't find that if you stick around the neighborhood. Where boxers are populated densely, they fight better. You probably don't want to challenge that.

I am not challenging your assertion, just pointing out a semantic difference that seems relevant in this instance.

Interesting argument.

However the argument also rest on there being many more people on earth. For example we are 8 billion now which is double the population from 1974. Furthermore there’s been an influx of professional boxers from highly schooled and traditional boxing countries ie Eastern Europe and the former USSR.

[BattlingNelson]

LOL.. funny stuff!

The generation crowing up with television though….. was great….. lol

[BattlingNelson]

But with that indeed being a fact, it’s as?also a fact that 1000 +other factors to consider also apply.

Such as?

[Bundana]

I have a hard time understanding, how the 1940s, with far fewer boxers, from far fewer countries, was a better breeding ground for producing great fighters... than the much more international scene we have today, with a lot more boxers in the mix, many of whom from countries that didn't even have pro boxing back in Robinson's day. Doesn't make sense to me!

[Hooded Terror]

It is accepted in pretty much so all of Sports: NBA, NFL, Soccer, and MLB that athletes are better than their predecessors. But when it comes to boxing, every past fighter is favored over the current crop. Let's sit back and look at this objectively. Let's take Spence and Crawford at WW for example. Now, I think we can all agree that Thomas Hearns is arguably the most talented WW of all time. But let's not forget that Hearns was not unbeatable. P4P I think Hagler and Spence are equals (yes, hagler was more versatile but Spence was a much better inside fighter and had the better defense and jab.). We saw what Hagler did to Hearns at 160. Now imagine Spence vs Hearns at 147 or 154? Can we really say for certain that Hearns would beat Spence? I personally think it's 50/50. Now let's look at Duran. Wo did Duran lost too? Wilfred and Leonard. How did they beat him? Movement, jab, and counterpunching. Crawford has all that and then some especially at 135 and 140. What evidence do we have that Duran would be guaranteed against Crawford?

Now, let's look at one of the most popular fantasy match ups: GGG vs Hagler. Now, I will agree that based on the combination of skills and accomplishments, Hagler is the Greatest MW of all time outside of maybe Monzon. But can we honestly say that he faced a natural MW as skilled as GGG? I don't think so. The best natural MW he faced was Mugabi. He lost to Leonard and some thought that he lost to Duran (Draw IMO). Now, name a "natural Mw" that he faced that was as good as GGG and Canelo? He never faced anyone as great as those two a MW.

Sugar Ray Robinson and Leonard are considered P4P top 3 but both struggled with slick fighters who were less than Floyd, yet Floyd is always the underdog.

Ali is one of the greatest HW but in today's era he would be too small and he never faced a fighter as good as Usyk or Fury. I could go on and on but why is the boxing community so nostalgic when it is pretty evident that fighters today, to a certain extent, are as good as fighters from the past?

Mugabi was not the best middleweight Hagler ever faced. And lets remember the point in Marvin's career where he faced Mugabi.

Relative to today, they didn't have weigh-ins in 1986 like they do today, to say nothing of the nutritional and performance mechanisms that exist today. From a skill standpoint, I don't see where the accomplished GGG trumps Hagler. It would be very very interesting to put the GGG of say 2015 (Lemieux) in with the Hagler of 1983 (Sibson), with a weigh-in schedule of the 80's. I see a competetive tough contest, but I envision nothing that would make me lean towards Golovkin or induce me to wager on his behalf.

Floyd is a great fighter. I could argue pro and con he is one of the greatest ever, and his technique and fundamentals are outstanding, but he did benefit greatly at welterweight and junior middleweight from eras that had no sharks among the ranks.

There have been a handful of fighters that I have wondered about in fantasy matchups with Roberto Duran at 135lbs. Whitaker, Pryor, Chavez, DLH, Robinson (yes!), Pacquiao and Crawford. Each of those matchups could be argued as terrific. And would Roberto win them all? Would there need to be trilogies? Mostly when I start imagining a current fighter against a benchmark like Duran, its an indication that the fighter in question has reached a certain compelling level, accomplishment and acclaim.

Its a fun debate.

[Clegg]

Because boxing has gone backwards as a sport. Guys used to fight the best, and fight far more often. Now most of the top fighters only fight twice per year and often against somebody outside the top 5 or even outside the top 10. Greatness has to be proven, no matter how good somebody looks vs B level opposition you have to test yourself at the top consistently and so few modern guys do that.

No active fighter has a resume even half as good as Sugar Ray Robinson. If you combined all of Spence and Crawford's best wins, the list wouldn't compare well to what Robinson or Leonard or Duran did in their careers. There are so many talented, skilled fighters in history who might have been better than we realise, but if they don't prove it, they're not gonna get the credit.

Tyson Fury is a perfect example. Won McDermott fight by robbery then delayed the ordered rematch. Then ducked his main domestic rival Price. Made up lies about a dying family member in order to withdraw from the Ustinov fight. Used steroids. Lied to his own fans multiple times about it. Ducked the Wlad rematch. Delayed the Wilder rematch for a year, tried to go to court to avoid the third fight. Should've fought AJ and Usyk by now but found reasons not to come to terms. He has no fight scheduled, hasn't fought in 7 months, his last fight was a cherry pick.

I can accept that Fury is possibly the best HW of all time in opinion-based fantasy fights, but when you look at his career choices, he clearly did not do all he could to prove his greatness in the way that Ali did, and as a result Ali deserves to be ranked higher historically because he faced all the greats of his time, in their prime, and managed at least one win over all of them.

A few years ago, people were saying that AJ would've beaten almost all of the old school HWs because he had so much size and talent. But actually he wasn't even good enough to get by Ruiz. There are ATG fighters every era but a lot of modern fighters get credit for things they haven't proven. If they were tested more often, more of them would be exposed.

[BattlingNelson]

Clegg

Some interesting stats here: http://jeetwin188.com/forums/b...1#post31384181

I’m looking for a particular thread that has info relevant for this thread, but the search function is pretty bad. I will look for it again later.

[QueensburyRules]

Because boxing has gone backwards as a sport. Guys used to fight the best, and fight far more often. Now most of the top fighters only fight twice per year and often against somebody outside the top 5 or even outside the top 10. Greatness has to be proven, no matter how good somebody looks vs B level opposition you have to test yourself at the top consistently and so few modern guys do that.

No active fighter has a resume even half as good as Sugar Ray Robinson. If you combined all of Spence and Crawford's best wins, the list wouldn't compare well to what Robinson or Leonard or Duran did in their careers. There are so many talented, skilled fighters in history who might have been better than we realise, but if they don't prove it, they're not gonna get the credit.

Tyson Fury is a perfect example. Won McDermott fight by robbery then delayed the ordered rematch. Then ducked his main domestic rival Price. Made up lies about a dying family member in order to withdraw from the Ustinov fight. Used steroids. Lied to his own fans multiple times about it. Ducked the Wlad rematch. Delayed the Wilder rematch for a year, tried to go to court to avoid the third fight. Should've fought AJ and Usyk by now but found reasons not to come to terms. He has no fight scheduled, hasn't fought in 7 months, his last fight was a cherry pick.

I can accept that Fury is possibly the best HW of all time in opinion-based fantasy fights, but when you look at his career choices, he clearly did not do all he could to prove his greatness in the way that Ali did, and as a result Ali deserves to be ranked higher historically because he faced all the greats of his time, in their prime, and managed at least one win over all of them.

A few years ago, people were saying that AJ would've beaten almost all of the old school HWs because he had so much size and talent. But actually he wasn't even good enough to get by Ruiz. There are ATG fighters every era but a lot of modern fighters get credit for things they haven't proven. If they were tested more often, more of them would be exposed.

- - Can no longer stomach what Blubber has become, but Fury KOed McD in the 10th round the first fight to no credit when McD turned his back to sprint to far side of the ring to keep from getting proper KOed, a clear TKO when a fighter quits in the ring..

The decision wasn't a robbery, the McD robbery was when he beat up Danny Williams to no credit by loony Brits who simply don't understand their regional grade school sillyboy biases don't count in scoring, but I'd agree the idiot ref had it near shutout for Fury when it was more a close decision.

[Slugfester]

I have a hard time understanding, how the 1940s, with far fewer boxers, from far fewer countries, was a better breeding ground for producing great fighters... than the much more international scene we have today, with a lot more boxers in the mix, many of whom from countries that didn't even have pro boxing back in Robinson's day. Doesn't make sense to me!

It doesn't make sense to you that boxing centralized to a few giant markets produces better fighters than where boxing aficionados are spread between 3 continents.

[Slugfester]

To everyone: Prove there are more boxers now than in the Golden Age, or please refrain. Maybe it's true, maybe it isn't. Intuition is not reliable. Intuition tells us the world is flat and parallel lines never meet, both incorrect. I do not rely on anyone's intuition. Either you have the facts on the number of boxers in both periods, or your argument is based on intuition. Give me facts and I will acknowledge them.