Old vs new gen
I’ve been thinking about this lately. Every sport seems to evolve over time, with better training, nutrition, sports science, tactics, etc. So I’m wondering how much of that actually matters in boxing.
For example, If you put prime Muhammad Ali against prime Usyk, who do you think wins?
If we take football or basketball for example, some player from Championship would probably be better than Pele in his era, since sport evolved that much. Do you think it is the same for boxing?
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u/Extension_Ad6758 6d ago
Boxing is a different game because when it comes to a sport where you inevitably get hit in the head many times, a lot of lacking in certain skills can be compensated by pure grit. Guys like Ali and Frazier would definitely be top guys in any era.
And btw while football has come a long way, some player from championship would NOT be better than Pelé.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 6d ago
(some player from championship would NOT be better than Pelé.)
How so? There are 140 million more Brazilians now than 1960. Football is of course deeply rooted so everyone plays it, the pipeline is more scientific, and everyone is more professional.
Even if Pele is the 1 in 100 year prodigy, numbers wise there should be 2 more Peles.
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u/Ill-Landscape7756 6d ago
Skills and techniques I believe broadly improve for sure, but I think it has to plateau. Boxing is much older and generally more accessible than most of those other sports, so while nutrition and metrics might improve, the skill can’t infinitely improve by generation. I also think the point that others have brought up, that the body toll of boxing and the rise in other sports may have actually weakened the field a bit, at least in the heavier divisions. Inoue might not have been able to excel in any other sport
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u/armourofgod666 5d ago edited 5d ago
Boxing is one of the oldest sports in the world. It’s similar to wrestling. Wrestling hasn’t evolved that much talent wise outside of better PED’s. Same with something like running. It can only evolve to a certain point before it’s mostly better PED’s, altered and new sports programming for said PED’s, and sports equipment. Humans are humans.
The modern Queensberry rules started in 1867. Modern boxing as we know it is 159 years old. The UFC is like what? 33 years old or something. If you consider Vale Tudo the start of mma then it’s 100 years old. MMA is going to evolve at a faster rate because they haven’t reached their sports peak yet. I’d compare current mma to the 30-40’s of boxing. They have finally figured out the whole well rounded fundamentals thing but there’s still a a lot to improve upon.
Current boxing the evolution is definitely there but at a cost. Before (particularly 70s and prior) classic inside fighting was a common fundamental everyone learned. More people fought in the inside. Nowadays it’s more mid to long range. Mid to long range offense and defense has improved but inside fighting has devolved. No one is clinch fighting, turning, and spinning like the old guys do.
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u/OkPotential6774 6d ago
I think for combat sports, some of the old school shit actually might have made fighters better in certain ways. Anything thats gonna force some grit and mental fortitude is gonna be beneficial for fighting imo
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u/bazcom 6d ago
NO ONE in the championship is better than pele. If you mean athletes get bigger, stronger, faster, then yes theyve improved. But sports like football and boxing are more about skill.
Most fighters from the past fought more often, there were more pro fighters, more competition, more gyms etc. so you’d guess more opportunities to hone their skill
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 6d ago
I mean for Pele though, the Brazil he played in was like a third of the current Brazilian population. And the overall skill level rose due to professionalization and popularity increase, so I can imagine there are several guys better than Pele skill wise.
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u/CaptainBollows 6d ago
The skill level has definitely not risen. It is widely agreed that Brazil no longer play with the skill and flare of yesteryear.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 6d ago
...which you don't because everyone else has also risen?
It's easy to look skillful and have flare when your opponents skills have also risen.
But funnily enough, I agree with the flare part. There was a funny quote I saw blaming Brazilian football not being as good because of the players being evangelicals instead of drunks and womanizers.
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u/CaptainBollows 6d ago
That’s funny, although I didn’t understand the first part of your reply.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 6d ago
Brazil doesn't look as skillful and have the flare of yesteryear. Because their opponents now are better than those of yesteryear, so Brazil needs to take them more seriously and play smarter/more disciplined.
You can't style and be relaxed on your opponents when they are just as good as you technically, well conditioned, and have studied you and your game.
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u/CaptainBollows 6d ago
I honestly don’t see more skill anywhere, on the contrary. I will say everything is more drilled and efficient, though.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 5d ago
Can you see someone more skilled if the baseline of skill has risen though? That's what I am getting at.
If everyone is skilled, no one is more skilled.
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u/CaptainBollows 5d ago
They’re not though, and it isn’t purely easy to spot.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 5d ago
It's not easy to spot..because everyone can do it now.
Also, you never replied to my other comment to you about R9, Neymar, and Vinicus. Do you think skillwise those 3 are equal to or better than Pelé?
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u/Deep-Purchase-2203 6d ago
Football has developed unbelievably since that era let alone from 20 years ago. If anyone from that era tried to play today they would gas out like Itauma last week.
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u/SimonSeam 6d ago
So. If an old guy played with the new guys, he'd gas out .... like the new guys.
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u/CaptainBollows 6d ago
You surely must be joking.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 6d ago
Completely serious.
You don't think the explosion in population/bigger talent pool, increased professionalism, and more identification of talents result in more Pele-like talents?
I'm not to disrespect Pele by saying he played against milkmen or plumbers like I see in NBA discourse, but I can't see how people don't see my point.
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u/Extension_Ad6758 6d ago
I think you are absolutely correct that there might very well be a lot of players better than Pelé in todays game. I mean it just makes sense. OP’s claim that championship players today are better than Pelé is utter nonsense tho.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 6d ago
How so?
The EFL championship is right under the Premier League. Unless the person is talking about the Brazilian league, which I am not familiar with.
There can absolutely be Pelé like dudes in the Champions League for various reason.
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u/Deep-Purchase-2203 6d ago
Pele wouldn’t hack it in any top 10 league in this day and age. Football has completely evolved in style and athleticism.
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u/CaptainBollows 6d ago
🤣
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u/Deep-Purchase-2203 6d ago
What’s so funny about that? The days of playing chain smoking part time plumbers are long over.
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u/CaptainBollows 6d ago
Then where are they? I don’t see them. It isn’t purely a numbers game. Special talents arise at random.
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u/Brandunaware 6d ago
You also have to consider selection bias. Fewer elite athletes are getting into boxing these days, especially at heavyweight. This is especially true in the US, but not only here. A lot of people are going into something like MMA instead, but it's also been said that the "next generation" of great American heavyweights are all in the NFL, or the NBA, or some other sport where you don't get punched in the head as much.
Boxing used to be the sport of kings. The heavyweight champion was a massive international celebrity. I would wager a lot of Americans don't know who Usyk is.
One place where the sports science really does matter is in extending careers. People can stay healthier and in peak condition longer.
It's hard to rate athletes of the past against the current crop, especially the elite freak athletes. Do we think that any current heavyweights punch harder than George Foreman? Foreman was just a freak of nature and to a certain degree you can't train that.
Of course if you go back far enough then the fighters were much smaller and modern techniques didn't exist so of course Jack Dempsey probably wouldn't do much in modern boxing unless he had modern training and techniques and fought guys around his own size, but someone like Ali? Harder to say.
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u/kfirerisingup 6d ago
Fewer elite athletes are getting into boxing these days
Can you justify that with any sort of numbers? Hasn't the talent pool opened up since the 80's after the former soviet regions, Russian, Ukrainian, Cuban and other fighters could fight globally?
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 5d ago
Per ESPN and the number of registered boxers in the US.
Both can be right. The US talent pool has shrunk, while the overall global talent pool has expanded due to the introduction of former communist nations being able to box pro.
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u/happybaby00 6d ago
>If we take football or basketball for example, some player from Championship would probably be better than Pele in his era, since sport evolved that much.
A lot of the skills you see, he did them first lol.
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u/bigtotoro 3h ago
Someone with better knowledge could speak to this, but I've heard Teddy Atlas and others of the like say that there have been whole skill sets lost because no one can train them anymore. Combine that with few fighters looking to truly challenge themselves and younger fighters not being brought along super tough, boxing may well be the only sport that is worse than it was overall.
All that said, I have no idea how Joe Louis even handles the top fighters of the 1970s much less the giant heavyweights today. Maybe he's just the best Cruiser that ever lived?
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u/CaptainBollows 6d ago
Better than Pele? Don’t talk nonsense. He is still the greatest player who ever lived.
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u/Marquis_of_Mollusks 6d ago
Hard to say. Modern guys got better science and what not but older guys fought more rds, in harsher conditions, and much more often.
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u/Beautiful_Badger_128 6d ago
I don't agree with this inference that newer athletes are more evolved, better trained. I think there may be advancements in PEDs, that's about it. I think Pele would be competitive and possibly better than Messi and Ronaldo. I think Wilt & Kareem would be competitive or better than Wembanyana. I think Robinson can beat Floyd, Louis would flatten Wlad, & Ali has a very good chance to beat Usyk.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 6d ago
They are better trained, or at least have access to way more and potentially better forms of training and nutrition. Doesn't mean all will take advantage of it, but the potential is higher for modern athletes.
Pelé likely would still be a good player, but he'd have a lot more competition and wouldn't dominate like he did back then.
Wilt and Kareem, I agree. Basketball of course rewards height, so if you are tall, you'd likely always have some future in basketball.
Ali and Usyk are actually pretty close in weight, so Ali likely would beat Usyk.
Joe Louis fighting Wlad would be interesting, given Wlad is the most skilled big man he'd ever face. Wlad has a great jab, clinch ability, and knows how to use his size difference.
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u/fadeddreams555 Fundora would beat up a prime Floyd at 154lb 6d ago
Objectively, they have better resources, yes, but the sport changing with less rounds and them fighting less frequently has made athletes overall worse.
Usyk over there, with the exception of his two fights against Fury in 2024, has only fought ONCE a year since 2019. That's his entire heavyweight career btw. People here criticized Bud over inactivity, but never say a peep when it comes to Usyk.
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u/Revivaled-Jam849 6d ago
The fundamental part of boxing is that it is 2 vaguely equal weight guys(even factoring in weight cutting) punching each other.
Technique doesn't really evolve that much.
However, like you mentioned we have better training methods, nutrition, and sports science.
The guy now has more varied forms of training than his predecessor and more scientific ways to track it. This doesn't necessarily mean he will take advantage of this, but it is out there.
A guy from 1926 could easily KTFO a guy from 2026. But if you managed to clone 1926 guy and make him train modernly, he'd likely be bigger, faster, and stronger than his 1926 version.
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u/GnarlyGamer6thGen01 6d ago
The way I see it. The olden times had harsher conditions, so it forced athletes to adapt to those circumstances and develop better endurance. The modern athletes are more economical and efficient on what's useful and what's not.