"The art of inflicting punishment and scoring points in close almost had died out of boxing, and that is doubly bad." This was written by Nat Fleischer as he analyzed a mythical matchup between Sugar Ray Robinson and Stanley Ketchel in the 50s (he saw both in the ring). He said Robinson had the better footwork, faster hands and the ability to hurt his opponent while moving backwards while Ketchel was by far the bigger puncher and had more skill on inside. He picked Ketchel. Now I don't think anyone actually would pick Ketchel these days, but the part about inside fighting technique and how it has been lost had me thinking. Why do you think Fleischer saw it this way? I can think of some possible option. 1) Inside fighting was actually better, more effective back in Ketchel's era. 2) Fleischer does the same as most veteran boxing fans tend to do, which is overrate the era when he himself was in his prime. Still, I find it interesting that he mentions technique being better in the old days while the new guy is the faster one. 3) Inside fighting had changed somewhat and there was greater variety of techniques and moves in the old days. The fighters of 50s used the techniques that worked the best, so the inside fighting looked more simple, even though the old era wasn't actually any better. 4) The refereeing had changed and fights shortened so that there was less clinching and thus less time spent at the close quarters than in the early years of the century. Thus the fighters didn't fight inside as much. Also since the refs were more active, you couldn't use the same kind of wrestling or other moves anymore.
Point 4 is the most important. If tactics are effective they rarely go out of style entirely. It's a combination of the game evolving and what's allowed within the rules and what is being enforced. In Ketchel's era you basically had to know how to fight inside as that were almost all the action was. The ref was there more of a spectator and to issue counts when knockdowns occured. Those tactics would be almost useless today because it's not tolerated. (usually) There have been a lot of great in-fighters on modern times, but it's actual fighting. Duran,Chavez, Castillo, Corrales to name a few. From some of the old school footage i've seen the "in-fighting" was more like a Ruiz style of crud.
The difference is that the films clearly illustrate how wrong Fleischer was and how TOTALLY FUCKING CORRECT guys like Hut and I are
You assumed what my agenda was instead of reading the message, right? (not that I could really blame you) :: The question, however, was WHY did Nat have this take which obviously seems wrong
