Are boxers getting better or worse?

Question

If you check out the link below you will see Ron D is saying today's boxers are a lot better than the old ones. He also goes as far to say Lennox Lewis would beat Muhammad Ali.

Is he right or wrong

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AkAXpsFDN9n0Oc0ZF0FgvS5LxQt.;_ylv=3?qid=20080625224209AAuCbdh

Answer 1

WRONG, no boxer today can beat any boxer from the old days, (when boxing WAS boxing)! Today its about pionts. Win seven or eight rounds then cruise for the last five or four. The old days was about knocking people out or beating them to near death. Lennox Lewis has two fights of my top three worst/boring fights. He vs Tony "TNT" Tucker, and against David Tua. Did Ali ever have a boring fight? I'm not a fan of Ali and don't think he is the greatest but, I'd take Ali over Lewis anyday!

Answer 2

Very wrong. Today fights are stopped way too early. In the old days fights weren't stopped unless you were near death. That is the only way you can truly be challenged. To give all you got and for it still not to be enough. I haven't seen that in any of today's fighters. If you look up ring magazines list of the 100 greatest fighters, they are all old school. Older fighters were better because they had to do more. They never ducked anybody because they would never gain any recognition that way. Old school fighters were better and sadly just like the heavyweight division, boxing is deteriorating.

Answer 3

Boxing has hit a rock bottom, but is improving. Boxing peak is long gone, Lennox Lewis was the last truly great boxer, but I can't really say with any degree of confidence that he would have beat Ali or any of the great heavyweights in Ali's era. Floyd Mayweather could have been great, some can make a case that he still is even if he did avoid a lot of top welterweights. In this day, yesterday's boxers would appear to resemble fighting gods as I can't really make a case that any fighter out there can go up against one of yesterday's greats. Floyd Mayweather may have been able to do some damage to yesterday's boxers but thats about it. I mean, think about it, there is just a severe lack of talent in boxing right now. I feel like there are potential up and coming boxers that may some day be half as good as yesterday's boxer. Kelly Pavlik, P. Williams, D. Haye, A. Berto(who, with the right guidance, can become a really great fighter, there are no words to describe his sheer speed and explosiveness). I think M. Cotto would have lost to Mayweather had they fought, but is still a good fighter with a great future. In closing, boxing today kind of sucks.

Answer 4

In terms of athletic ability, that is, speed, quickness, strength and stamina, today's boxers are better.  It's a given actually because of modern strength and fitness regimens as well as sate-of-the-art training equipments.  For instance, old fighters were limited to old-school road work and calisthenics for their physical conditioning while today's boxers are pampered in first-class gyms and fitness centers.

However, in terms of skills, smarts, ring generalship and strategy, i.e. the ability to adjust fighting styles in the ring, the old fighters have my vote.

Answer 5

The Mo Minator has no idea what he is talking about for one, id disregard his whole statement if I were you.  

Are boxers getting better? Of course they are? Watch the style changes through the years. The have better training,better diets, better equipment to train with. And like any sport they have learned from the ones before them and improved on it.

Lennox Lewis beating Muhammad Ali? I cant see it, Ali would find some way to overcome what Lewis had. Ali would have been to slick and quick for Lewis. Lewis did not want any peaice of a younger Chris Byrd because he knew the style would be horrible for him to deal with. Ali would be 5 times as much to handle as Chris Byrd.

No fighter in history can match Ali's heart. Lewis would fade and Ali would capitalize.

Did Ali have any boring fight?? Yes!! later in his career most of his fights were farces.

Hey John "The Lewis Hater" J ....wtf?

Answer 6

This question is silly. Boxing styles have come and go but the fight game is more or less the same.

Back then - there were more rounds so people had to train more for endurance and they fought to last. Back then, boxing was a sport where everyone wanted to stand above all and that meant by talking as much trash as possible and doing as much in the ring as possible. Just like the UFC today, top fighters fought top fighters but they also took on dangerous contenders to keep earning that respect over and over. Fighters back then too smaller purses and so they fought more often throughout the year. This meant that they were in shape year round and had to fight intelligent to keep themselves from being too injured for the next fight.

Today - fighters are all about padding their perfect record and showing off their strengths so they keep getting matched up against people who can't hurt them. The fact that rounds are shorter means boxers are bigger because they can cut so much weight because they only have to go 12 rounds instead of 15. Boxers back then had to stay true to their weight class. Thanks to un-informed people and promoters who know that the moniker "undefeated" still sells so they never give their fighters a fight he can't win, UNLESS it's a big time title match that would make a ton of money.

Today's fighters have far less fights and are known to get out of shape in between fights. They're too busy enjoying the fame to really take boxing seriously 24/7/365. What would you do if you just got paid 2 million for a fight? The pros back then had more title fights than most fighter's careers today.

Today's fighters could be arguably more powerful because they fight less rounds and can therefore cut more weight to make a smaller weight class. They could arguably be more intelligent since there's all the tapes of previous fights to study from. They are, however, far more out of shape than the classic boxers.

Before we decide if today's boxers are better, we should first look for one that can last as long.