Comparing fighters from the past with modern ones is complicated

I agree if we’re talking specific cases, like a Jeffries or Corbett or Johnson vs much later opposition. But Louis or Ali are modern enough.

 

It does seem bizarre to compare Louis to Ruddock, cuz Louis is like 10x more skilled than Ruddock was.

IMO, the impact of modern nutrition in athletics is vastly overblown. It's there, don't get me wrong, but it's still overblown. For example, according to a study done a few years back, Jesse Owens had comparable speed to Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson, one of which being the most notorious doper in the history of the Olympics. Modern nutrition didn't too help much there.

 

Not really, Joe Louis would probably be a lesser fighter today because his style was modelled after a style that didn't really exist anymore by Louis' own era, let alone today.

Jack Blackburn modelled Louis after Joe Gans, and without Blackburn there is no Joe Louis. He'd probably never be as good as he was, under anyone else's wing.

 

Tyson is an example IMO of someone with Louis’s gifts in a different school of boxing - Louis would be successful but he’d never be as “sound” as he was under Blackburn IMO I don’t even think the great trainers would disagree.

 

Foremans comeback should have saved us from the notion that modern fighters are superior because they are bigger and better. In the very beginning of course theres some truth to it when the sport wasn't even legal when the fighters were growing up and technical doctrine was still being worked out and the best fighters were figuring it out as they went along. After that its bogus.

The only objective way to measure this is size. And guys the size of Lennox, Wlad and AJ have been around over a century in the past they usually just weren't good enough to win and when they were they weren't shown much respect like Carnera. Now everyones going to the opposite extreme of acting like they are unbeatable. You can't really have both.

And in the smaller weight classes this shouldn't be an discussion at all. At least HWs the average fighter is noticeably bigger now then in the past. There is a finite limit to how much bigger the 175ers or 160s can get.

 

I think the biggest hindrance in figuring out fantasy/mythical matchups of eras is before and after the day-before weigh-in became the norm.

Today’s welters come into the ring as middleweights or even super middleweights. Yesterdays were a couple pounds over the limit after weighing in day of fight.

So it’s probably more realistic and fair to do a modern lightweight vs. a junior middle from past decades.

Of course there’s also the question of who would fare better with modern vs. ‘ancient’ equipment as far as glove sizes and even before/after mouthpieces became a thing. And the things we take for granted now like mandatory eight-counts and neutral corners (as opposed to standing over a downed man and attacking him the moment he’s back on his feet) could weigh heavily in outcomes — get a man down early today and he’s more apt to recover than if you can attack him while he’s still trying to get his feet back under him.

 

If we consider that, Blackburn has to be the GOAT trainer.

 

Usyk beating Fury, AJ twice and Dubois proved you can’t just rely on size and that alone is not enough and never has been

Skills and Ring IQ > size and power

 

It's very hard to compare, as long as a champion fought the best of his era he qualifies for greatness. There are differences era to era, but some are underrated in general, and some are overrated in general.

 

The counterpoint to that is Usyk is still a modern fighter and would be considered big in the past even if he's considered small today.

 

He’s no bigger than Ali, Norton, Foreman, only two inches taller than Liston but with a smaller reach, Holyfield and I’d favour any of these fighters over almost all of the current crop

 

With the smaller they debate strength and stamina based on superior training, weights, supplements and who knows what else today ... there's some validity and some over inflated fluff too ..

 

There is some truth to the OP. People get nostalgic and most people don’t like to hear that their idol wouldn’t fare as well in modern times. But in all sports Athletes tend to continually get bigger faster and stronger. Case in point Carl Lewis’s best 100m dash time set in 1991 would have placed him tied for 6th in the last Olympics. And that’s an athlete from the 90s, not the 60s,50s,40s etc.

 

It could also reflect how the changes in track and shoe technology influence outcomes as well, we are far more technologically advanced now than in 1991, for example the advancements of the swimming record in large part had to do with the development of swimsuits in the past few decades.

Such seemingly minor technological changes can explain the minuscule percentile changes between the top 5 of the recent Olympics compared to Lewis’ results.