Today VS Yesteryear: Has Ring IQ Diminished Overall?

[Ghost Town Ghost]

I am slowly turning into a miserable, middle aged, yearning-for-the-old-days type of fight fan lol. It seems to me that the guys today that can operate like the 'old guys' (pick your favorite era), are getting scarce. I am mainly talking about setting traps, EFFECTIVE feints, knowing the cute stuff, inches and angles, that kind of thing.

There are fighters out there now that I think are very good, but the overall quality level seems to have dropped tremendously, especially in the higher weight classes.

Any thoughts?

[margaret thatcher]

Well, I do at least feel these days there has been increasing focus on being big and strong for a weight. More extreme weight cutting so guys can weigh artificially low and then blow back up, more weight training work, PEDs to aid with this stuff, etc.

[gilgamesh]

Well, I do at least feel these days there has been increasing focus on being big and strong for a weight. More extreme weight cutting so guys can weigh artificially low, more weight work, PEDs to aid with this stuff, etc.

Yeah, if I had a gym. That'd be one of the big things I'd swear against. The massive weight cutting in order to come in 20 pounds heavier on fight night type sh*t.

I fully believe a fighter would be better served to make weight comfortably, and spend his entire camp and all of his training just working on his technique and skills.

[margaret thatcher]

The HW division is pretty hilarious btw, the average hw pro boxer is fatter than my fat uncle

[oogiebe]

The HW division is pretty hilarious btw, the average hw pro boxer is fatter than my fat uncle

Agreed. You go back and watch the 70's and they are mostly in impeccable shape. Foreman; Lyle; Norton; and Frazier and Ali (early 70's)

[Ghost Town Ghost]

Yes especially the HW division, true.

I was watching some old fight and the guys were beating the crap out of each other and boxing wonderfully, and Don Dunphy only spoke every 20 or so seconds - nowadays, the announcers blab endlessly and are like A JAB! WOW WHAT A SHOT! WOW!!!!!!!

[oogiebe]

Yes especially the HW division, true.

I was watching some old fight and the guys were beating the crap out of each other and boxing wonderfully, and Don Dunphy only spoke every 20 or so seconds - nowadays, the announcers blab endlessly and are like A JAB! WOW WHAT A SHOT! WOW!!!!!!!

LOL! Dunphy was great. Never overtalked the fight. Never had to, to your point. Training was supposed to be primarily preparing your body to take punishment and build endurance while sparring was to learn and get your muscle memory to respond instinctively in teh ring. Now I'm not sure what they are doing. Folks talk about the advantages of modern training, but I just don't see it.

[Ghost Town Ghost]

Yep absolutely, I can't see it either. When I watch the old fights, and the not-so-old fights, and the new fights, the eye test just doesn't lie. To use a well used example, Ali wasn't super huge, blah blah blah - but he absolutely toys with Fury or anyone around now.

[Blodhemn]

That would be a weird match up. If Ali got lax on the ropes, the door would be opened for Fury to get a big foot in. Imagine that press conference too - Fury is one of the few to match Ali's showmanship - that'd be nuts. Holmes would be a surer bet, imo. Fury has a good boxing IQ actually, better than the previous reigning HW champ in Wlad.

In general though, there are more one-dimensional fighters and less discipline among some of them. Still some great fighters but the interesting match ups are so few and far between. That's the biggest issue now - where is the fire? Rivalries? It all comes off as a boring business deal for the most part. Sport needs to be injected with some purpose along side the PEDS. Fury and Wilder had a little but Deontay isn't good enough to make it matter.

[Blodhemn]

Modern sports media has destroyed personality also. For some reason an athlete has to have this squeaky clean image or else the sport is not legit. The irony of it is when anybody steps out of line, the media swarms them and it sells. No shit! Shows a sign of actual humanity.

Anyway, I was looking forward to Fury - Joshua - Wilder - Usyk, finally a coming together of the top at HW, but I still won't hold my breath, well, as long as Corona is afoot I will.

[Ghost Town Ghost]

Fury is certainly the best since Wlad, whom, in his bombs-away days, beats him. I really can't stand the fighter he became after that, the octopus thing really turns me off.

Just about any HW great of the past beats the living crap outta Fury.

[Enlightened-One]

I am slowly turning into a miserable, middle aged, yearning-for-the-old-days type of fight fan lol. It seems to me that the guys today that can operate like the 'old guys' (pick your favorite era), are getting scarce. I am mainly talking about setting traps, EFFECTIVE feints, knowing the cute stuff, inches and angles, that kind of thing.

There are fighters out there now that I think are very good, but the overall quality level seems to have dropped tremendously, especially in the higher weight classes.

Any thoughts?

What "yesteryear" era are you referring to?

When you review snippets of bouts that took place eighty years ago or more, the pugilistic skills of the fighters that competed during that era seem obscenely primitive in comparison to what we currently see.

[Ghost Town Ghost]

Whichever snippets are viewable enough to see what is actually happening is enough to know.

[Ghost Town Ghost]

When I imagine an Ali vs Fury fight in my head, I see Fury as 'the bee' - a big fat bumble bee, whilst Ali is a fly darting around him.

As far as fighters from the 30's/40's looking primitive on film, I would strongly disagree and say that lots of film from these periods show ultimate boxing art/skill, like Benny Leonard, for a quick example.

[mjaco]

I'm of two minds on this. First of all I'd agree with a lot of the posters in that I personally can't shake the feeling almost no fighters of recent years really pass the eye test in a big way. I look at the guys who are currently fighting and, other than Lomachenko, I just don't see anyone that stands out to me and makes me go "Wow!" On the other hand, I recognize it's human nature to experience a feeling of, what the original poster, Ghost Town Ghost, called, "miserable, middle aged, yearning-for-the-old-days." Everyone feels as if the time they first got into boxing is the best era and everything has gotten worse since then. So perhaps it's mostly that.

Objectively speaking, training methods (and PEDs) are superior now so from that regard, fighters should be better. But it still appears to me that the skill level is not quite as good. I don't know if that equates to a lesser ring IQ, but some factors contributing to this are:

- Fighters, in general, have fewer pro fights for their age so they have less experience.
- The best athletes, at least in America, rarely go into the sport anymore.
- There's been a rise of Eastern European and Cuban fighters who have partially filled the void created by fewer elite American boxers but they come out of these extensive amateur backgrounds and most of them maintain that style. I can't absolutely say it's a worse style than how professionals fought years ago but it is a little different one.
- And the biggest factor, to me, is that with so many divisions and titles available, it's much easier to not only get a title but keep it without having to regularly face elite competition. I think fighters are simply less "match tough" now. Meanwhile, guys who are only good fighters are now considered great because they can put up a lot of wins and grab multiple titles without facing too many other good fighters.

Then again, there's definitely a risk of overestimating the past and underestimating the present. There were fat heavyweights in every era and someone with Fury's size and the bit of skill he has would be tough for any "small" heavyweight of the past to deal with.

[dookus]

Objectively speaking, training methods (and PEDs) are superior now so from that regard, fighters should be better. But it still appears to me that the skill level is not quite as good. I don't know if that equates to a lesser ring IQ, but some factors contributing to this are:

- Fighters, in general, have fewer pro fights for their age so they have less experience.
- The best athletes, at least in America, rarely go into the sport anymore.
...
- And the biggest factor, to me, is that with so many divisions and titles available, it's much easier to not only get a title but keep it without having to regularly face elite competition. I think fighters are simply less "match tough" now. Meanwhile, guys who are only good fighters are now considered great because they can put up a lot of wins and grab multiple titles without facing too many other good fighters.

Then again, there's definitely a risk of overestimating the past and underestimating the present. There were fat heavyweights in every era and someone with Fury's size and the bit of skill he has would be tough for any "small" heavyweight of the past to deal with.

i think you hit the nail on the head. Boxing is a sport requiring, at the elite level, several qualities that are predominantly inherited: punch resistance, intelligence (or ring IQ), coordination, reflexes, the ability to stay calm and think clearly in moments of extreme pressure.

The only way those things can be maximized, seeing as you can't train them, are a) have a larger number of competitors and b) test them more rigorously to see who has the right stuff.

As you say, there used to be a lot more boxers in the US - I think five times as many as now in the early 20th century? - and they fought far more often. Moreover, there was usually one recognised world title to go for - you couldn't grab a vacant strap.

So: a far greater number of fighters going through a far more vigorous selection process. It would be very surprising if world champions of yesteryear were not more "talented" in terms of skills than modern ones, even if their training wasn't as well-designed as it would be now.