BoxRec

It used to be you were washed up by your early 30's. What are these guys on now? Move up a class or two & fight forever. Let's see how many of them end up dead a few years from now.They aren't fooling anybody.
They fight once a year. They're rich & their old. That seems a rather sad set of circumstances in which one might improve. The Boxing commissions make Bud Lite Selig look like Mountain Landis.

Honestly, I don't think they're "on" anything in order to prolong their careers. Hell, from what I understand, those drugs would do more to shorten a fighter's career in the long run than extend it. Their bodies would break down earlier, not later ...

I think there are a variety of factors at work here.

One of them being that the general population just lives longer & stays healthier longer now than it did in years past. The average lifespan is longer than it's ever been before & therefore with the added years, I think an elongated physical prime is a by-product of that.

Plus training methods have changed over the years as well.

The biggest factor I'd say there is though, is that there are just less professional fighters active these days with a lot less promotions going on than in years past, which means less fights for the elite fighters than there used to be. With many of those earlier in their careers being easier than they used to be as well.

So, fighters aren't taking the same amount of abuse coming up that they used to in the past. Therefore by the time they reach there 30s their no longer likely to be as shopworn or past it as fighters used to be at that age.

Those are my thoughts on the phenomena anyhow. Thoughts?

Joe,
I agree with you on the point fighters today aren't as abused as they once were. On the other side however, fighting once a year, over a number of years is a form of abuse, would you not agree? The big contention in baseball is Aaron started to decline at the age Bonds started to improve. Fighters need to fight. Long layoffs hurt conditioning & timing.
How do you improve as you get older, when you're basically idle? The older you get, the harder you need to work in order to maintain your mental & physical well being. Training is not the same as fighting. These guys are getting a little help, & the promoters don't care as long as the money keeps rolling in.

joe kurtz wrote:Honestly, I don't think they're "on" anything in order to prolong their careers. Hell, from what I understand, those drugs would do more to shorten a fighter's career in the long run than extend it. Their bodies would break down earlier, not later ...

I think there are a variety of factors at work here.

One of them being that the general population just lives longer & stays healthier longer now than it did in years past. The average lifespan is longer than it's ever been before & therefore with the added years, I think an elongated physical prime is a by-product of that.

Plus training methods have changed over the years as well.

The biggest factor I'd say there is though, is that there are just less professional fighters active these days with a lot less promotions going on than in years past, which means less fights for the elite fighters than there used to be. With many of those earlier in their careers being easier than they used to be as well.

So, fighters aren't taking the same amount of abuse coming up that they used to in the past. Therefore by the time they reach there 30s their no longer likely to be as shopworn or past it as fighters used to be at that age.

Those are my thoughts on the phenomena anyhow. Thoughts?

Good points, although I think a majority of it is due to the point which I bolded.

Bill,
Oh I ABSOLUTELY agree with you 110%.

That's one thing that that I really hate about the state of the game today, which is the relative state of inactivity by the tier top fighters. It aggravates me to no end! :x

And it's not just the fighters & their people that are to blame, but the promoters & the TV networks as well. In the fairly recent past it used to be that you could announce a major bout & have it come off within a couple of months. Now? It seems like they want 6 - 9 months before the fight occurs. Sure, not in every case, but in far too many of them.

Look at Ali, in 1976 for instance, coming off of probably the toughest, most physically demanding fight of his career in Frazier III, he came back with a gimme fight against "The Lion of Flanders" himself Jean Pierre Coopman , but followed it up just several weeks later with a tough challenger in Jimmy Young ( who as we know, proved to be MUCH tougher than they thought he'd be ), then went to Germany just a little over three weeks later & fought Richard Dunn.

Far from done yet, he engaged in his match with the wrestler Antonio Inoki in Japan that summer only to make yet another quick return to the ring for his September rubbermatch with Ken Norton in Yankee Stadium. Only THEN was he done for the year. So, actually, if you want to consider it that way, Ali only used up the first nine months of that year to engage in five fights.

THAT'S the sort of schedule I'd like to see today's fighters emulate.

Less wear and tear on the body. If you only fight once a year, that's a lot less:

punches you need to take
cutting weight
chances of getting injured while training