seems like fighters these days can easily grow into other divisions more easily then fighters from the past....putting on muscle weight for example but also keeping their speed. Also dropping to make weight but then recovering rather easily therefore sometimes completely outsizing their competition....i guess i enjoyed watching fighters of the past moving up and beating guys that were clearly bigger then them and doing it only on talent alone makes me wonder how fighters of the past would have competed now with all this help Sugar Ray Robinson for example...how far up could he have gone in the divisions and still kicked ass? Cruiserweight?
Back then they didn't have all this hoopity hopity fancy schmancy drugs What they had is BALLS and TOUGHNESS
Ray Robinson it seems burned himself out in a fight he could have won easily vs Joey Maxim............modern science is like any tool...you have to be smarter than the tool to use it. And I'd like David Haye to lay Ray out at 200lbs no matter what gear Ray was on. Hell Ray had difficulty with La Motta when all LaMotta had on him was a 16lb advantage ::
Well if one fighter had access to modern science so would all of them and the field would remain basically the same. Also there was no cruiser division when Robinson was fighting.
This is just it. A bigger guy like Haye would pack on more mass and retain more speed. There are limits to what a guy like Ray can get done. I guess if Ray had modern science and was fighting the scrubbish likes of Marco Huck he might well kick fuck out of him but not the "elite" guys.
i don't agree.... in boxing today a smaller fighter still has the opportunity to put on enough weight on to contend against a fighter from a higher weightclass who himself would have to cut weight to fight him....Davide Haye would have to cut weight to stay at 200 pounds Sugar Ray would be given that same opportunity
Fighters of today can grow into higher weight divisions more easily because there are so many belts and divisions now, a guy like Paulie Malignaggi can still grab a title under the right circumstances, allowing somebody like Broner to move up and take his title from him. How many shitty titles did De La Hoya grab, beating guys who had no business holding a belt to begin with?
that's a very good point....it's easier to move up and challenge a belt champion rather then the unified holder....but even then you still don't think that fighters have more flexibility to due to modern medicine and training then in the past?
The flexibility has very little to do with modern science (although i'm sure it can play a part) You're still missing something. It's not just the various sanctioning body belts, but there were less weight classes. A guy like Henry Armstrong could compete for the 'super featherweight' or 'junior welterweight' title as there was no such thing. Between feather and welter there are not two extra divisions with 4 "champions". A lot of belts up for grabs.
but my point is that it seems like fighters these days can move through a lot of weight classes because of science....would manny PAC have been able to put on the muscle he did and moved through the weight classes starting at flyweight through jr. Middleweight if he were fighting in the 1950s? Manny PAC weighed more then De La Hoya in their welterweight fight. Back then the fighters moving up were usually the smaller guys in the ring...usually
Pacquiao weighing more than Oscar is because of poor planning and who knows what else. In the ring you could tell Oscar was the bigger man even though he was probably emaciated. That's still a big exception to the norm and it was a catchweight fight that Oscar underestimated in both his opponent being able to make the weight. The 'modern science' failed.
215 or something That said Haye was good for around 5 decent stanzas at 200lbs, then he flagged badly.
besides Manny vs Oscar...would you think it possible for manny to fill out the way he did with muscle and move up all that weight in the 1950s? Probably would have finished his career fighting at 135
