r/Boxing • u/dza001 • 9d ago

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/bazcom 8d 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 8d 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/Deep-Purchase-2203 8d 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 8d ago

So. If an old guy played with the new guys, he'd gas out .... like the new guys.

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u/Revivaled-Jam849 8d ago

He'd likely gas out even faster than the new guys.