boxing today vs boxing 30 years ago

originally posted by: D8Tee

originally posted by: TinySickTears
a reply to: D8Tee

ok.
if you say so.
im a fan and not a fight scholar. in my opinion(as i have been saying. not fact) tyson is one of the greatest of all time and most people feel the same way
i hold fast that tyson in his prime beats any boxer of any era 5 out of 10
does not mean he is THE best but he is ONE of the best

I agree with you, guy had amazing skills and I'd never say he wasn't one of the best fighters to ever step in the ring.

Just saying that his level of competition makes it hard to judge in a historical sense.

Would he have beat an Ali or a Frasier?

Certainly a possibility. I'll also agree that he could have beat any boxer of any era 5 out of 10.

then we are on the same page cause thats what i am saying too.
thats how i feel about the guys of today. hard to judge but imo the era i mentioned had better boxers.
things like this can never be truly settled. who is the best? we can never know...
we can say a guy like tommy morrison is not one of the best....most people agree. he fights ali 10 times and he loses 10 times.
tyson wins 50% against anyone.....i think that is a fair statement.

people also tend to remember 'late' stage tyson. the douglas fight. that was not exactly late but not early either. that was kind of the start. they remember prison. they remember the ear. they remember the face tattoo and the voice.

some people do not remember how crisp and ferocious he was....he was a beast man

a reply to: TinySickTears

Don King ruined Tyson.

Losing Cus and Rooney was the beginning of the end.

Tyson was explosive. I don't know there's been another fighter that could throw combinations as fast and with such intensity all at the same time avoiding shots to himself.

Peek A Boo style of boxing he possessed was devastating against taller fighters, get on the inside and launch a flurry of bodyshots culminating with that uppercut, wow.


ETA: Might as well throw this in here as well.

Ali is the greatest,
he wasn`t a big dumb ape that used brute force to win and he never had to resort to biting off his opponents body parts like some other "boxers" did.
Ali had real skill.
compared to ali most boxers look like a bunch of drunken unskilled bar room brawlers.

originally posted by: Tardacus
Ali is the greatest,
he wasn`t a big dumb ape that used brute force to win and he never had to resort to biting off his opponents body parts like some other "boxers" did.
Ali had real skill.
compared to ali most boxers look like a bunch of drunken unskilled bar room brawlers.

whatever man. did you even watch the tyson clip just posted?
after he shuts these dues lights off he is helping them up and hugging them and shaking their hand.
tyson was not a career ear biter/dirty fighter...


i have to say too after watching those clips ali looks very unimpressive compared to tyson. i know these are just highlights but thats how it looks to me.
also people say tyson the dirty fighter but he is hugging these dudes and helping them up vs ali who #in stands over top of them with his arms in the air....
give me a break...people make it out like ali was this saint of a boxer but he was a mad # talker....not like he was mr nice guy boxing dude..

originally posted by: Tardacus
Ali is the greatest,
he wasn`t a big dumb ape that used brute force to win and he never had to resort to biting off his opponents body parts like some other "boxers" did.
Ali had real skill.
compared to ali most boxers look like a bunch of drunken unskilled bar room brawlers.

Ali was the original trash talking motormouth, he showed his opponents no respect.

"It's gonna be a chilla, and a killa, and a thrilla, when I fight the Gorilla in Manila."
To call another black man a "gorilla," especially in that era, was beyond the pale.

And it only scratches the surface of the ugliness of Ali's trash talk that built up that fight. He also referred to Frazier as "the white man's champion" and, even worse, an "Uncle Tom."

The dude was a Jerk.

Teófilo Stevenson, 3x gold medalist, maybe the best boxer that many outside of the boxing world never heard of...

Roberto Duran, the no mas fight not withstanding, was maybe the best pound for pound boxer--other than Tommy Hearns, perhaps, who ever lived.

MHO, of course.

Boxing today as opposed to that of yesteryear (the good ol' days?)? Good question... Certainly the money is better--no comparison, really...

The heavyweight division sucks, a lot. But the lower divisions all seem to be fairly loaded with good talent. Though I can't name any of 'em. I don't follow it as closely as I once did, though.

Everyone is going to have their favorite era... My granddad was a Gentleman Jim Braddock fan. My dad swore by Joe Louis. My mom was a Jack Dempsey fan. I lived and died by Joe Frazier and Ali.

They're different era's. One fight now, and you're set for life. Back then, that wasn't the case, really.

a reply to: TinySickTears

Tyson was a brawler not a boxer, joe frazier was a brawler too, frazier had no boxing skills he just kept going straight at his opponent and tried to beat them with brute force.

ali developed unique boxing skills that no one had seen or used before.

to me boxing is more than just punching your opponent, anyone can do that, ali made boxing an art.

ali wasn`t the fastest puncher or the hardest hitting puncher, he boxed smarter not harder he showed that you don`t have to be the biggest and strongest to win, a lot.

a reply to: TinySickTears

Still plenty of great fighters out there.
MY top 5 P4P (in no paticular order)
Vasyl Lomachenko
Terrence Crawford
Andre Ward
Gennady Golovkin
Sergey Kovalev

The problem, which Al HAymon tried to solve, is there are no fights on regular cable anymore.
To enjoy boxing to the fullest, you have to have a subscription to HBO, Showtime or both and you have to pay big money for PPV's
The promotion war is an even bigger issue. Top fighters are not able to fight eachother due to promoters refusing to work with each other and/or fighters are contractually obligated to fight on specific networks (HBO/Showtime)
The only exception was Manny Pac and Mayweather. The only reason that happened, was that the money was so big the promoters and networks all made a ton of money.

Another issue, is sanctioning bodies (WBA, WBO, ect) Most of them have multiple belts in the same divisions, and requitre fighters to fight mandatory chalengers, instead of better fights, unless they pay the mandatory challenger "step aside" money.

This gives fighters built in excuses to duck fighters. This screws the fan.
Screwing the fan brings me to possibly the worst problem with boxing right now.
JUDGES BLOWING FIGHTS
Weather it's corruption, or bad judges, it breaks fans hearts and turns them away from the sport when two guys give everything they have and leave it all in the ring for the judges to screw up the fight and declare the wrong man the winner.
Happens all the time and its pitiful.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
The best is Vasyl Lomachenko. Watching this guy work puts even some of the older fighters to shame. He might be the greatest boxer of all time, which is a shame, as boxing is falling out of favor at least in the US.

i hear lomachenko is going to fight guillermo rigondeaux in december.

now that is a throw back fight if ever there is one.

a reply to: TinySickTears

It has been said that the late 70 and into the 80's was a golden era for boxing. There were some greats, but go back even more to the 40's and 50's and you might see some even better. If you look at the Welter through Lightheavy weights you will see it was also a golden era. You mentioned some of my favorites though. Duran at Lightweight was a monster and in my opinion the best Lightweight ever. Hagler is a top 3 Middleweight and another one I loved watching. In my opinion Leonard and Hearns are the 2 and 3 best Welterweights ever. If he had a better chin Hearns might be number 1. He could outbox anyone and could turn out their lights with one punch. Ray Robinson at Welter beats either though. He would knock Hearns out and likely get a fairly close but unanimous decision against Leonard.

Aaron Prior had a brief but incredible run at Junior Welterweight. If he hadn't had a drug problem he could have been an all time great. If Salvador Sanchez had not been killed in a car accident we might be mentioning him as one of the best ever. At Light Heavyweight Michael Spinks is a top 3 for sure. He knocked out just about everyone with what he called the Spinks Jinks. He was not nearly as good at Heavyweight though.

The 80's was a terrible time for Heavyweights not named Larry Holmes. In the late 80's this kid from Catskills NY showed up and was knocking every one out with power and speed that perhaps had never been seen. The young man made some terrible mistakes and abandoned the things that made him great and paid the price as a 40:1 underdog knocked him out in Japan. The kid never was the same after that.

Now if you go back to the 70's there are tons of great Heavyweights. Ali, Foreman, Frasier, Norton, Quarry among too many to mention we're fighting at that time.

Thanks for the topic. I think I will go watch Hagler vs. Hearns on YouTube now.

originally posted by: TinySickTears
a reply to: alldaylong

thats bull#.

tyson was an amazing fighter man...he was tuning dudes up with the quickness and he was very young too. he was a force.
after the whole going to jail thing he was different and especially after Cus died...he was not the same after that. Cus was like his father man.....

tyson was a great fighter...as good as any other heavyweight that has ever laced up and better than most

Yep. He began a downhill after Cus died. He fired Rooney and abandoned his great defense and head movement. He partied and blew money like crazy. I heard in Japan he was out all night drinking and having fun with the local women. He looked all hung over from the beginning of the Douglas fight. That is not to take away from Douglas. Buster was an underachiever who hated to train, but was motivated by his mother's death against Tyson. He got in incredible shape and fought by far the best fight of his life and won all but maybe 2 rounds before sending a terrible looking Tyson to the canvas. I wish I would have bet a few hundred on him. At 40:1 it would have been a good return.