Twice as many fighters in 1955 than today?

[Kalan]

[q

More than 1 or 2, most of those debuts against guys like Pascual Perez probably had 30 or 40 fights.

Pascual Perez was another guy like Jimmy Wilde, with a record heavily padded with rubes. Of course that was before Boxing was well regulated... back before commissions operated in many states... back before the safety net really kicked in so there were hordes more starving poor people...

Chumps would fight for pocket change and be talked into making their pro debut. "Charlie, look at the built on this man. He'll kill Wilde. Let's see your boxing stance champ. Perfect, now take a couple swings. Damn, you're a natural talent. I don't see many men with your natural power. After you KO Wilde we'll get you a big money fight. Don't worry about anything champ. We have trunks and gloves for you and those shoes you're wearing will be fine. Charlie here will be your trainer. Here's a dollar in advance, and after you KO Wilde we'll give you a 100 dollar bonus. Now let me buy you lunch so you'll have plenty of energy for the fight tonight.

Oh...by the way. You're name for this fight tonight will be Billy Papke. Charlie and I picked that name because it's a great sounding fighter's name ... But it's already on all the posters champ, and we'll make 10 X more money if you're Billy Papke. Just trust us Billy. We're the brains. You're the KO artist."

[Tony1244]

Even though athletes are bigger, stronger, faster, and quicker today, in boxing that may be offset some by there were simply more boxers in decades past.

If less people do something, you're obviously going to have a lesser quality overall. That is not to say that boxers then were better, just offset some.

Another big difference is fighters hardly ever fight anymore. Two fights a year is active nowadays. Fighters decades ago it was normal to fight several times a month.

[elmersalsa]

I am one that believes that the more a fighter is active, the more he learns inside those ropes. A fighter should be active, win or lose, no matter what.

[Caractacus]

I'm pretty sure that there was a book published about this,
particularly the topic if White Fighters were simply ranked higher back then(during the Fabulous 50's)
just because they was White.
If I remember the conclusion in the book from the research was that they were not ranked any higher
just because they was White.

[Tony1244]

I am one that believes that the more a fighter is active, the more he learns inside those ropes. A fighter should be active, win or lose, no matter what.

Would be nice. ALL divisions would be interesting if the top 30 guys fought each other 4 times a year.

[DaveyMac]

Gee, this was an intelligent interesting thread in the beginning with lots of great boxing minds contributing. Then Kalan/Caractus hijacked it and ruined it. Why do the forum mods keep letting this happen? And aren't they the same guy why are they arguing with themselves?

Shame.

[Bundana]

Gee, this was an intelligent interesting thread in the beginning with lots of great boxing minds contributing. Then Kalan/Caractus hijacked it and ruined it. Why do the forum mods keep letting this happen? And aren't they the same guy why are they arguing with themselves?

Shame.

This site has some of the worst mods, and complaining to them will get you nowhere. If you have a legitimate question, you're likely to get ignored.

Just look at this thread: Twice I've asked Chuck1052, why he won't release the relevant numbers - but not even an answer from him! Same thing over on the "Total Bouts in the BoxRec Database: By Decade" thread. Here I have asked for these numbers several times over the last 3 years - but nothing but silence. Not even a "sorry, we can't/won't release these numbers because...". It's like talking to a wall!

[Chuck1052]

Gee, this was an intelligent interesting thread in the beginning with lots of great boxing minds contributing. Then Kalan/Caractus hijacked it and ruined it. Why do the forum mods keep letting this happen? And aren't they the same guy why are they arguing with themselves?

Shame.

This site has some of the worst mods, and complaining to them will get you nowhere. If you have a legitimate question, you're likely to get ignored.

Just look at this thread: Twice I've asked Chuck1052, why he won't release the relevant numbers - but not even an answer from him! Same thing over on the "Total Bouts in the BoxRec Database: By Decade" thread. Here I have asked for these numbers several times over the last 3 years - but nothing but silence. Not even a "sorry, we can't/won't release these numbers because...". It's like talking to a wall!

On a previous post on this thread, I listed the number of PROFESSIONAL FIGHT EVENTS (the great majority of them being fight shows) which were staged in the United States during selected years based on what I had found on BoxRec, not the number of bouts.

During the late 1920s in California, there were usually five bouts on a professional boxing card. On an annual basis during that time, there were over one thousand boxing shows in California, according to a number of newspaper sources at the time. It may be that not all of those boxing shows are not entered on the BoxRec website at this time. For instance, there were only 846 California events listed for 1929 on BoxRec. However, there may be some California events which have not been entered on BoxRec as of now. According to BoxRec, there were only 92 professional boxing events staged in California during 2016. Keep in mind that California had a population of about five million during 1930, but has a population of about forty million at the present time.

- Chuck Johnston

[Caractacus]

How much more often did the average professional fighter fight back in 1955 compared to today ?
I bet it was a whole bunch more too.

[Caractacus]

Boxing in Black and White-A statistical Study of Race in the Ring,1949-1983
by Andrew Lindsay (published in 2004)

https://books.google.com/books?id=U5sfA ... g=PA104&dq

[Bundana]

How much more often did the average professional fighter fight back in 1955 compared to today ?
I bet it was a whole bunch more too.

Exactly... that's what I want to know too! I think this is a very interesting question. All we need, is for Chuck to tell us the number of boxers in the database active during 1955. Then we could easily figure this out (since we already have the number of fights in the database for that year).

[Chuck1052]

I have not figured out how to find the number of professional boxers who were active during 1955. But does it really matter much? Many of those boxers probably had only one or two bouts each during that year, which means that they really dabbled in the sport for the most part. One reason that such boxers may have had so few bouts during 1955 is that there were far fewer professional boxing shows taking place in the countries such as United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia at the time than during the 1920s and 1930s. As a result, it is probable that there were far more truly active professional fighters before World War II than during the 1950s.

- Chuck Johnston

[Bundana]

I have not figured out how to find the number of professional boxers who were active during 1955. But does it really matter much? Many of those boxers probably had only one or two bouts each during that year, which means that they really dabbled in the sport for the most part. One reason that such boxers may have had so few bouts during 1955 is that there were far fewer professional boxing shows taking place in the countries such as United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia at the time than during the 1920s and 1930s. As a result, it is probable that there were far more truly active professional fighters before World War II than during the 1950s.

- Chuck Johnston

If the question is, if there were really twice as many boxers in 1955 compared to today... yes, then it matters!

[IKSRTFO]

Of course because anyone can get a belt today. A Bermaine Stiverne or Chris Areola wouldn't be able to get a belt in 1955 and more than likely would be playing football or baseball.

[punchoutsb]

Of course because anyone can get a belt today. A Bermaine Stiverne or Chris Areola wouldn't be able to get a belt in 1955 and more than likely would be playing football or baseball.

Those two would be far too lazy to have been successful football players in 1955. Just my opinion of course.

[Tomasino]

Of course because anyone can get a belt today. A Bermaine Stiverne or Chris Areola wouldn't be able to get a belt in 1955 and more than likely would be playing football or baseball.

Those two would be far too lazy to have been successful football players in 1955. Just my opinion of course.

Agree 100%

[IKSRTFO]

Of course because anyone can get a belt today. A Bermaine Stiverne or Chris Areola wouldn't be able to get a belt in 1955 and more than likely would be playing football or baseball.

Those two would be far too lazy to have been successful football players in 1955. Just my opinion of course.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt. They'd probably be NWA/WWWF wrestlers in 1955.

[Caractacus]

I have not figured out how to find the number of professional boxers who were active during 1955. But does it really matter much? Many of those boxers probably had only one or two bouts each during that year, which means that they really dabbled in the sport for the most part. One reason that such boxers may have had so few bouts during 1955 is that there were far fewer professional boxing shows taking place in the countries such as United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia at the time than during the 1920s and 1930s. As a result, it is probable that there were far more truly active professional fighters before World War II than during the 1950s.

- Chuck Johnston

yeah, sure,but they still had the cajones to lace up and put on a pair of gloves and was paid a sheckel or two.

[Caractacus]

I think another question could be,
did the introduction of television to the masses in the early 1950's
affect the number of people who took up boxing by 1955 ?
Because television back then was sasturated with live boxing shows,
so people just watched it in their living rooms instead of going to town to watch the matches.

[DaveyMac]

I do some work inputting fights for Boxrec, mostly fights from Oklahoma in the 1900-1935 range. Sometimes other places and times, but most come out of the Daily Oklahoman archives.
I can tell you this there were lots of weekends in that period where there would be 6-7 cards IN OKLAHOMA, I'm guessing today that's about the average for the country. Many of the old cards we don't have recorded, and may never be, because although the fact there were fights made the paper the results never made it.
You will find a newspaper mention like "Joe Opponent fought last week in Sapulpa" or " Big card tomorrow night in Ada" or "weekly show in Chickasha cancelled" and of course we don't have results from any of these so they aren't included in the Boxrec database.

If I had to guess, Chuck's numbers (which I found very informative) if anything are low as pertains to old time fights because we don't have all of these cards. There were definitely more even than those totals in the older days, and maybe significantly more.

Another way to see that there were way more fighters back in the day is their boxrec points. To a certain degree boxrec points are relative to the total amount of fights in the universe because every fight has the ability to create points. If you look at the '50's or '30's most decent fighters had more points than world champions do today. This doesn't mean they were better fighters per se, it just means there were a lot more fights and hence a lot more boxrec points to go around.

The biggest culprit of course was TV. If you look at any of the old Ring annual books Nat put attendance at the Garden and other places in the back (and I think even a number of shows) and with the advent of TV both numbers started to drop. Live entertainment went down in every industry with the advent of TV.

[Chuck1052]

Television was a factor in the dramatic decrease of professional boxing shows in the United States. But I also believe that the dramatic societal change in the United States after World War II was another factor. This was due to the tremendous economic boom with so many Americans getting good jobs, unparalleled educational opportunities and a far better chance of home ownership. The suburbs of so many American cities increased in population by leaps and bounds as a large number of Americans moved from the old neighborhoods in the inner cities to homes built in new housing tracts.

Many of the American boxing venues were located in the inner cities. Even if television didn't come into being, such boxing venues would have had trouble staying in business when so many people were moving to the suburbs.

- Chuck Johnston

[Bundana]

Another way to see that there were way more fighters back in the day is their boxrec points. To a certain degree boxrec points are relative to the total amount of fights in the universe because every fight has the ability to create points. If you look at the '50's or '30's most decent fighters had more points than world champions do today. This doesn't mean they were better fighters per se, it just means there were a lot more fights and hence a lot more boxrec points to go around.

I don't think it works that way. If most decent fighters from the 50's have more BoxRec points than the best fighters do today, it surely has got nothing to do with the number of fights that took place back then, or the number of boxers that took part in these fights.

According to BoxRec, in 2016 there were more than 23,000 boxers (male and female) that took part in approx. 25,000 fights worldwide.
For the year 1955, BoxRec lists slightly less than 15,000 fights (14,461 in their last update). Presumably, they also have far fewer active boxers in the database for 1955 than for 2016.

Now let's say, that we in reality are missing so many fights from 1955, that there actually were more fights and more active boxers back then, compared to today. It's certainly a possibility that can't be ruled out. So when it comes to handing out points, how does the database incorporate this possibility into their points? The simple answer is of course, that it doesn't. It can only work with the information that is fed into it. It doesn't say: "well, for the year 1955 there could very well be a colossal number of fights/fighters I don't know about... so I better double the points for the boxers back then".

So, no... there is no correlation between the worldwide number of fights/fighters and the points individual boxers are given by Boxrec.

[Caractacus]

[quote="Chuck1052"

Many of the American boxing venues were located in the inner cities. Even if television didn't come into being, such boxing venues would have had trouble staying in business when so many people were moving to the suburbs.

- Chuck Johnston[/quote]
and dont forget prior to the 1920's most inner cities consisted of people who were immigrants from Europe.
Harlem NY was almost lily White
and so was Roxbury Massachusetts (where John L. Sullivan was born and grew up
and to give you an example later Malcom X moved to there when he was young.

[DaveyMac]

Another way to see that there were way more fighters back in the day is their boxrec points. To a certain degree boxrec points are relative to the total amount of fights in the universe because every fight has the ability to create points. If you look at the '50's or '30's most decent fighters had more points than world champions do today. This doesn't mean they were better fighters per se, it just means there were a lot more fights and hence a lot more boxrec points to go around.

I don't think it works that way. If most decent fighters from the 50's have more BoxRec points than the best fighters do today, it surely has got nothing to do with the number of fights that took place back then, or the number of boxers that took part in these fights.

According to BoxRec, in 2016 there were more than 23,000 boxers (male and female) that took part in approx. 25,000 fights worldwide.
For the year 1955, BoxRec lists slightly less than 15,000 fights (14,461 in their last update). Presumably, they also have far fewer active boxers in the database for 1955 than for 2016.

Now let's say, that we in reality are missing so many fights from 1955, that there actually were more fights and more active boxers back then, compared to today. It's certainly a possibility that can't be ruled out. So when it comes to handing out points, how does the database incorporate this possibility into their points? The simple answer is of course, that it doesn't. It can only work with the information that is fed into it. It doesn't say: "well, for the year 1955 there could very well be a colossal number of fights/fighters I don't know about... so I better double the points for the boxers back then".

So, no... there is no correlation between the worldwide number of fights/fighters and the points individual boxers are given by Boxrec.

Maybe.
I think the real truth though is that from 1955 probably 95% of the fights are from the USA, not so much now. So because the points were so concentrated there are way more people at any given time with 1000+ boxrec points then there are now.
Normally today there are 6-9 people with 1000+ boxrec points, in 1955 there were way, way, more.

[Bundana]

1000 BoxRec points is actually quite a lot! I don't think the norm these days are 6-9 guys at the same time with 1000 points. Right now, only 2 boxers have more than 1000 points: Canelo and Pacquiao. When did we last have even 6 boxers with 1000 points at the same time?

I would be surprised, if there were really way, way more than 9 boxers in 1955, who had 1000+ BoxRec points.

Also... as much as 95% of the fights in BoxRec's database for the year 1955 probably took place in the US? That's another figure I would be very hesitant to accept - in fact, I'm certain that must be very wrong!