marvelous marv wrote:Todays athletes are bigger, faster and stronger than ever. You can only rank a fighter based on the opponents he faced in his particular era and Marciano was the best of his era, but leave it at that. It may be blasphemous to say, but a heavy ranked 15 in todays world would probably beat Marciano.
they are also on steroids and epo and hgh, etc. there are lots of reasons why i never compare
from one generation to the next, head to head. what kind of a boxer would wilder have become
in the old days under those economic conditions and diet and training, etc, and what would the
greats of the past become in this era? you just can't compare them. ali had an MD for a cutman,
ferdie pacheco, who used to inject novocaine into ali's hands just before and even DURING fights.
luis resto crushed antihistamines into aaron pryor's water and gave it to him in the later rounds.
amphetamines were rampant in the 70's. now, guys get caught taking over the counter appetite
suppressants leading up to a fight and get titles taken away, and people taking steoids and epo
and hgh can usually beat the tests. people can only compete against the guys in their eras put
in front of them, the same way i wouldn't try to put wilt chamberlain or bill russell in today's era,
or put the olympic long jumpers or sprinters or pole vaulter of the 50's and 60's with today's.
either way, thompson is 6'5", fury is 6'9", klits 6'6" and 6'7", price 6'8", helenius 6'7", wilder 6'7".
even bowe and lewis and holyfield don't seem like big heavies anymore, especially after valuev.
the big guys from the 50's, 60's, and 70's had no athleticism whatsoever. primo carnera had NO skill,
and he wouldn't even be big today. lots of these big guys today can actually move and box.
that's why i say wilder need to accomplish something in his own era to be mentioned in the same
sentence as the greats of the past. he didn't live back then, and nobody can say what he would have
been back then, and those guys aren't around today, and nobody knows what they would become today.
not a fair comparison.