fighting 3-4 times in a month, how did they do it?

[ironalex]

Apart from pure hunger, desire and balls the old generation of fighters had over current fighters, they also had supreme activity. But I was wondering, how did they do it in regards to their preparation? Were they always tapering down? from what I have read they trained extremely hard always, so did they just train extremely hard mon-wed and then taper down from Thursday to fight Saturday and then start it all over again?

[Ray Corso]

Up until about 1955 there was no TV, a boxer had to prepare to "work" at boxing full time by making himself avalible basicly 24/7. In the meca which was NYC there was a live boxing show every week. On a different night there would a number of shows on the New England Circuit and New Jersey along with Detriot and Chicago and Philly.
There was NO TV no ppv or closed circuit, if you wanted to make the grade jump from 4 rds to 8 and then a semi to the main go you had to go get it!
If you were good and improving you could have a promoter who would get a matchmaker who could bring a good prospect along. They would put him on out of town shows and build him up that way.

The marque fighters remained active so they could be earning instead of sparing in the gym and possibly paying spar partners they would be on non titled bouts against softer guys that would have their chanve to look good with better opposition to be able to move up to better pay bouts.

Why not get paid for a fight as opposed to gym time prepping?
My old friend Gaspar Ortega in his final year as a pro fighter fought 25 times.
He went on tour, picked up all the pennies he could and walked away.

Back then the fighters really knhew how to slip and block and the top guys didn't get hit flush unles they were in with an equally top tier guy.

It wasn't easy to be that active but if you missed a few opportunities a promoter may not be calling again or you may have to start back in 6 round affairs for very little money.
Ray

[Anthony342]

Good points. That's another thing too. With no TV coverage and only an occasional fight filmed and sometimes shown later in movie theaters, it was just ticket revenue fighters had to go on, so there also wasn't near as much money in boxing then either. Even now or in recent years, if you look up a good boxer's record, you'll see a lot more fights per year in those early years and then maybe 2 or 3 a year during their prime with 1, maybe 2 in a year towards the end. The thing I often wonder about those days is, with them fighting so often, how the heck did they recover. A lot of those guys must have had more scar tissue and injuries since they often didn't give their cuts much time to heal. The only modern equivalent I see is guys from places like Mexico, Philippines, Russia that have anywhere near what the guys in the past had for number of fights, since they often start young, around 15.

[Bald Shavers]

In one year Henry Armstrong remained undefeated in 28 fights.

But if you look at the opponent list, you'd see him fight the same guy twice or three times, and that guy would have a record of less than 5 fights.

I think that its fair to say that some of those "fights" were really paid sparring matches. And yeah...without TV, cable, short circuit, etc., the ONLY revenue stream was the share of the live gate.

Before movies and TV, actors could only get paid when they showed up on stage. Now, Brad Pitt (who looks like me) can perform a role once and get paid a lot more and collect residuals for life because of the distribution power of technology.

[ironalex]

In one year Henry Armstrong remained undefeated in 28 fights.

But if you look at the opponent list, you'd see him fight the same guy twice or three times, and that guy would have a record of less than 5 fights.

I think that its fair to say that some of those "fights" were really paid sparring matches. And yeah...without TV, cable, short circuit, etc., the ONLY revenue stream was the share of the live gate.

Before movies and TV, actors could only get paid when they showed up on stage. Now, Brad Pitt (who looks like me) can perform a role once and get paid a lot more and collect residuals for life because of the distribution power of technology.

Wow really? Brad Pitt looks like me too! What a coincidence lol. Actually Henry Armstrong was a guy that inspired me to create this thread, in one month I saw he had 3 fights against 3 different opponents all of which were good fighters, one was a 10 round decision and he knocked the other two out. I wasn't asking why they fought so often as back then not only were they generally much poorer but there was more competition however I was asking more about how they did it. Like previously mentioned I wonder how they coped with the cuts or aches their body had or how they trained up until each fight

[ironalex]

Up until about 1955 there was no TV, a boxer had to prepare to "work" at boxing full time by making himself avalible basicly 24/7. In the meca which was NYC there was a live boxing show every week. On a different night there would a number of shows on the New England Circuit and New Jersey along with Detriot and Chicago and Philly.
There was NO TV no ppv or closed circuit, if you wanted to make the grade jump from 4 rds to 8 and then a semi to the main go you had to go get it!
If you were good and improving you could have a promoter who would get a matchmaker who could bring a good prospect along. They would put him on out of town shows and build him up that way.

The marque fighters remained active so they could be earning instead of sparing in the gym and possibly paying spar partners they would be on non titled bouts against softer guys that would have their chanve to look good with better opposition to be able to move up to better pay bouts.

Why not get paid for a fight as opposed to gym time prepping?
My old friend Gaspar Ortega in his final year as a pro fighter fought 25 times.
He went on tour, picked up all the pennies he could and walked away.

Back then the fighters really knhew how to slip and block and the top guys didn't get hit flush unles they were in with an equally top tier guy.

It wasn't easy to be that active but if you missed a few opportunities a promoter may not be calling again or you may have to start back in 6 round affairs for very little money.
Ray

Thanks for the reply Ray, I love hearing about the old fighters. I wasn't really wondering why they fought so often as I know they had to basically due to poorer living standards back then, lack of TV like u said and more competition but I was wondering how they did it. How they coped with their body aching, how they trained between those fights etc. because from what I hear about the old school fighters they trained longer and harder than today's fighters, plugging away at the basics. So how could they train like that and fight every week?

[The Old LefHook]

Thanks for the reply Ray, I love hearing about the old fighters. I wasn't really wondering why they fought so often as I know they had to basically due to poorer living standards back then, lack of TV like u said and more competition but I was wondering how they did it. How they coped with their body aching, how they trained between those fights etc. because from what I hear about the old school fighters they trained longer and harder than today's fighters, plugging away at the basics. So how could they train like that and fight every week?

Young guys require less recovery time. Hence, all those fights in their early years. Of course, a sore knuckle is a sore knuckle.

It was not only the need for money. Those were the standards of the time. Like Ray said: Fight if you want the call back. I suppose there was always the comfort of knowing the other guy probably had some left over aches too. Bad knuckles were as common then as now, but you didn't hear about them as much. Why let the other fighter know?

[billeau2]

human beings have a capacity to adapt that is often underestimated immensly. We have the story of the evil but very smart Aztec king: He had three stones that weighed a ton each and 300 men, he needed the stones up a mountain pass. The first day the general came back and said "your highness its impossible." The king exexuted 50 men and told them to try again tomorrow... The next day somehow the men managed to get the stones up the pass.

One of the reasons we can conclude that boxing has not necessarily evolved over the years is because.....a point Ray makes regularly as someone in the game.....the expectations are less. and its really that simple. If you cannot afford to get hit in the head and smacked around to a point where you cannot fight you learn methods to avoid contact. In a hierarchical system people learn to take care of business so a real bruiser counts... and if you have to fight 20 rounds, or 40, you adapt to it.

Mental toughness is where its at and its expressed in boxing through technique.

[ironalex]

human beings have a capacity to adapt that is often underestimated immensly. We have the story of the evil but very smart Aztec king: He had three stones that weighed a ton each and 300 men, he needed the stones up a mountain pass. The first day the general came back and said "your highness its impossible." The king exexuted 50 men and told them to try again tomorrow... The next day somehow the men managed to get the stones up the pass.

One of the reasons we can conclude that boxing has not necessarily evolved over the years is because.....a point Ray makes regularly as someone in the game.....the expectations are less. and its really that simple. If you cannot afford to get hit in the head and smacked around to a point where you cannot fight you learn methods to avoid contact. In a hierarchical system people learn to take care of business so a real bruiser counts... and if you have to fight 20 rounds, or 40, you adapt to it.


Mental toughness is where its at and its expressed in boxing through technique.

Thanks for the reply, I think you pretty much summed it up perfectly

[ironalex]

Young guys require less recovery time. Hence, all those fights in their early years. Of course, a sore knuckle is a sore knuckle.

It was not only the need for money. Those were the standards of the time. Like Ray said: Fight if you want the call back. I suppose there was always the comfort of knowing the other guy probably had some left over aches too. Bad knuckles were as common then as now, but you didn't hear about them as much. Why let the other fighter know?

Very true, thanks for the reply