One thing I've noticed about boxing fans compared to other sports

We hold our all time greats to the highest standard of any other sport IMO.

In a lot sports, a guy is put into a GOAT debate after 1 championship, 1 Super Bowl win, 1 World Cup win, ect.

In boxing, we make guys achieve years and years of wins at a high level before we even consider a top 20 place for them, let alone GOAT status.

I guess there's negatives to our harshness, but overall I see it as a positive.

We're far less prone to quickly anoint someone the GOAT than hardcores in a lot of other sports.

 

Part of the reason why, and I truly believe this, I think we're the most passionate and well-informed sports fans on Earth.

Being obsessed with boxing is different than being obsessed with football, basketball, hockey, ect. I really think we immerse ourselves more, and delve deeper into history. It helps because the QUALITY of our history is higher. For example, basketball or American football from the 50s looks like antiquated shit. Boxing from the 50s still looks high level.

These are my observations from studying plenty of forums of plenty of sports over the years.

There is NOTHING like boxing fans.

 

The negative side is that I think we're harshest, most unforgiving critics of any sport. But a lot of it is tough love. This is the ultimate proving ground.

 

I think it also has to do with the frequency of events. We have a lot more spare time between events (fights) than other sports fans, especially team sports. We have big fights sporadically and any given fighter will only have a few of them, unless they really thrived to be great but then again, these fights will be probably separated by years. Nowadays, star fighters fight what? two or three times per year at most. And if we go back a few decades, it would still be a handful of fights per year. We have to fill these dead times with something, which is why hardcore boxing fans are very history oriented. It gives a better sense of perspective than your run of the mill New York Rangers super fan. But to be fair, it's true that other sports evolved more than boxing in the last few decades. For example, being a hockey player and a hockey fan, it's incredible to me how different the sport is than it was in the 80's and it's also very apparent how much better is the average player now: faster, bigger and way more skilled. So achievement wise, the current best hockey player isn't on par with Wayne Gretzky but skillwise, if you don't put into context his dominance, it is easy to believe he woould achieve or surpass his level of dominance if he were propelled as is in the past (which is most probably true).

 

Yeah, boxing is weird that way.

Steph Curry is objectively way more skilled than Isiah Thomas, and way more talented than Bob Cousey.

Ray Robinson is more gifted and skilled than any 2023 welterweight.

Our sport is unique.

 

This phenomenon is definitely true, and you both make some excellent points when speculating the reasons behind it. As most know, my conclusions are bit different.

The two points I always get back to are these :

1) In every other sport, be it simple (such as running) or tactical (such as basketball), measurable or not, everyone agrees that the athletes now are better than in the 50s. Thus boxing has to be exceptional in some way.

2) Every generation has made the same conclusions about boxing with the same basis. Nat Fleisher believed Stanley Ketchell was more skilled than Ray Robinson, who according to him was just 'athletically talented'. Another journalist picked Jeffries over Ali (he had seen them both live). Ray Arcel picked Benny Leonard over Duran.

It seems that in boxing we have a tendency to rate the era of our youth, and the one right before it, as the best. The up-and-coming generation can't surpass it. I notice it in my own approach too.

I believe the explanation to this phenomenom goes pretty deep in human mind and to the reasons why we watch this sport, but I lack the skill to express my thoughts in that in English.

 

Boxers in general are more athletic today. No one has ever argued against that. That is to say, the average fringe guy at welter in 2023 is more athletic than the fringe welter in 1960.

The athletic freaks like Robinson, Duran, Gomez, and Leonard still stack up to anyone today.

Skill hasn't notably progressed. A top 10 Bantam from 1970 isn't any less skilled than a top Bantam today. In fact, in many cases, the 1970 Bantam is gonna be more technically solid.

That's unique boxing. You won't find an NBA guard from 1970 more skilled than a 2023 guard.

 

I think you slightly missed the mark on the point of my post. I meant that fans of other sports tend to be more reactionary, at least from what I've observed. A guy does something special in another sport and its automatically, "this is the greatest player of all time! He's already a top 10 GOAT!"

Whereas, in boxing, we're usually like: "Yeah, he looks like a potential great, but he has to prove himself against the elites for a few years first."

 

I do get the point, we just approach it bit differently.

In hockey we can look at Connor McDavid's skills and agree that he looks simply breathtaking, and in sprinting Usain Bolt made us drop our jaws. In boxing, the approach is more often "yeah but" instead of such pure admiration.

So we talk about the same phenomenon. You believe it is because boxing fans are more knowledgeable (which you reasoned well) whereas I believe it has to do with uniqueness of the sport and what it means to its followers.

 

In hockey, the equipment also has a lot to do with how much better current guys look. In a tv show, they made some current players play with the old equipment, and they looked like shit.

 

Same with modern tennis racquets. Guys (and gals) are able to generate more power than ever.

Thusly, for example, Nadal would destroy Borg on clay if both have their actual racquets. Give Borg a modern racquet, or make Nadal use a wooden one, and you have a highly competitive match.

 

The thing that makes the sport most unique skillwise in terms of past eras vs modern, is that boxing used to be waaay more common for youths to get involved. It was just a thing alot of kids did, the same way they play soccer/basketball etc today. Now the talent pool is drawing from a way smaller group, albeit with advanced training and knowledge from past days, but in no way is the sport getting anywhere near as much of the youth involvement as these other mainstream sports. Boxing used to be mainstream, or very close to it.

 

Totally agree.

That’s primarily because boxers, once they are amongst the top tier rarely fight, as opposed to athletes in every other non-combat sport. Most athletes perform 10’s to 100’s of times per year, as opposed to.. once.. maybe twice per year for ranked boxers. There is way more ‘data’ on other athletes, enough to remove the anomalies and really get a sense for how they stack up. Add to that the complexity of styles in boxing.. and phew.. it really takes time to sort things out in our sport!

Besides they say boxing is a very ‘cerebral’ sport and I think anyone who is a hardcore fan knows what that means, we study the fighters and moves with alot more intensity than other sports. Every fight answers questions and usually adds a whole bunch more..

 

The infrequency of boxers performing is precisely what is destroying the sport

 

This is where it gets tricky.

Borg was a marvelously talented athlete and as such comparable to anyone today. However, his skills worked so well in part because he had more time to operate, because the shots back then were weaker.

If moved to this day, Borg would also need to renew his style. It isn't sure he could maintain such a high level, because it is a different sport. Same naturally is true with Nadal and a wooden racquet.

Changing one element in sports affects everything.

 

I agree with this. He'd need time to adjust to the greater power and speed of play.

 

In boxing, one loss (especially a khtfko loss), and we get the "HIS CAREER IS IN TATTERS!" ala Harry Carpenter

One loss in the other pro sports is obviously nowhere near as magnified

 

Zeke was probably a bad example, because Zeke was also a lot quicker than Steph, now that I think about it. Steph has sick handles, but he doesn't have the first step Thomas had.

I should have just gone with the Cousey comparison.

 

Thomas would murder in today's game

 

I think you mentioned that before. Do you know what show it was?

 

If that perennial loser CPFraud murdered in the past 15 years, then yeah, Zeke would do well.

 

As someone from England, I can think of one sport in particular which is similar to boxing in the level of reverence it has for past greats - cricket.

The best batsman of all time is almost universally considered to be Don Bradman, who played from the 1920s to the 1940s. That is statistically backed up by his batting average of 99.94 which is nearly 40 higher than the career average of the next greatest batsman. To put it in more understandable terms for posters who might not follow cricket, it’s like a batter in baseball having a career batting average of .500. It’s so ridiculous as to be near impossible and is considered a completely untouchable record.

Now, most modern batsmen play a lot more cricket than Bradman did, who played in 52 test matches. Sachin Tendulkar, one of the great modern batsman, who played international cricket from the late 1980s to the early 2010s, played a world record 200 test matches and averaged just over 54. He is considered by almost everyone to be a top 10 batsman all-time, but still will never be considered on the same level as Bradman.

 

Great thread idea by the way, X.

 

Nah man, completely forgot

 

I do find it annoying when people say ‘he’s the greatest of all time’ when they haven’t seen everyone.

It started happening ages ago with LeBron in basketball before ex-players kept saying, hang on, Michael Jordan only retired 10 years ago and you’re already calling LeBron greater?

It started happening with Messi in football when he hadn’t done anything at the World Cup. I always said ‘let’s wait and see’ on that one because I knew he was amazing and probably more skillful than someone like Pele but Pele had 3 world cups and Messi had none and Pele had a far bigger impact on two of those three tournaments than Messi had had up to the last World Cup.

Some fans even tried it in boxing with Floyd but no-one was calling him that until he started saying it.

I definitely have a reluctance to call someone ‘great’ (let alone the ‘greatest’) until the evidence is near insurmountable. That’s my boxing fan’s head talking, for sure!

 

Messi and LeBron have a lot more claim to GOAT than Floyd does. Personally, do I think LeBron is the GOAT? NO! Mike was better and more dominant, and undefeated in the finals. Mike doesn't have the choking moments that LeBron has. But Bron at least has a case, especially after this year when he passed Kareem for #1 on the scoring list.

Messi is probably now the rightful GOAT after his WC win. His only competition is Pele and Maradona.

Floyd isn't a top 3 all time great in his sport like Messi and LeBron are.

 

Great post. I think there is an assumption among new fans of boxing that for all the reasons you’ve just mentioned about other sports, the same evolution in fitness and skill must have happened in boxing too but it just hasn’t… or at least it hasn’t in the same way.

 

Boxing is doing well right now.

 

Yeah, I agree with all of that. They all had an argument to be in the top 3 except Floyd. There’s just no reasonable argument for a placing like that in my opinion.