Throughout sport, the athletes are breaking new ground improving all the time playing at a higher standard but for some reason boxing is not. Over the last 100 years the 100m sprint times have tumbled, people have lifted far more, jumped longer and higher, swam faster. Physically man has improved, obviously this is down to advancements in modern training and nutrition. But it seem like sacrilege to even thing along these lines in boxing. Why don't we think that today's boxers hit harder, faster and take better shot. Why has the advancements that other sports have made are not happening in boxing. Perhaps they are happening but we just don't like to accept it. It not only the physical advancements that we have witnessed, football has probably has it greatest player now in Lionel Messi with Ronaldo not too far behind, with Barcelona considered the greatest ever side. Snooker and darts are playing at a standard far above past generations. Men's tennis has 3 of the greatest players ever to pick up a racket playing now. There are about 5 times as many people on the planet now that there was 100 years ago, more countries involved in boxing now, more boxing clubs, so why is it so hard to accept that are sport is at its top of its game. If you don't believe this then explain what makes boxing different from almost every other major sport? The Question for the Poll by the ways is: "When was the Golden Age of Boxing?"
70's to 80's was the Golden time for boxing, the heavyweight division was at it's strongest while the 80's saw a number of great fights in the middleweight division.
The reason boxing hasnt improved probly is because the lads arnt thirsty no more and all the health and safety do gooder crybabys moaning about headguards ,gloves etc and its lost its heart ,the amatuer game is fcuked
The exponential improvement in boxing and boxers has been stunted by the emergence of MMA (which I understand has seen rapid and sustained improvements), greater and more varied escape routes from poverty in countries where boxing had been heavily promoted, the possibility of a boxer getting a decent life in the amateur game and the seemingly now fading practice of protecting a fighter all meant that boxing hasn't progressed as it should. Competition in the 70's was at its height, so I chose then but the greatest fighters of the last 10 years could easily have graced any era.
The skills in the amateur game are as good now as they have ever been, and in both our countries much better than ever before.
Boxing politics is the biggest detrimental thing to boxing at the moment, you have fighters picking opponents and dodging worthy opponents, fighter fight far less than they used to and now you have so many boxing new and worthless belt.
I dont think you can compare boxing to other sports, boxing has been around for hundreds of years, not in its proffesional form but very similar. The likes of football has only been around for 130-150 years, new technology and rules are implemented to make the game better. Personally I dont think messi is even near the best player ever, so I find your theory on that a little bizarre, granted he is currently the best, but even in the modern era ALL professionals would argue that players like Zidane, Brazilian Ronaldo etc were far better in their day, that is not to mention much much better players like zico, cruyff, best, maradona They should once again increase the rounds in boxing back to 15, to stop boring points wins, however the reason it was brought down was due to fatalities and major injuries
I think the major difference with boxing compared to other sports, is that the participants are 'manipulating' their opponent directly - with most other sports, the people involved manipulate a foreign object like a ball or a dart. Athletes are improving in all sports but you can't really see the improvement in boxers so much, again because they compete directly at each other. (I went for 1980-1999 because those were the years I was old enough to appreciate the sport, first hand, to start with)
That is spot on. Worthless belt's, boxing politics, and scum like Don King dragged boxing into the gutter and held it there.
