The sport and the art

[RodBarker]

You dumbos ,, the 40 round fights went that long because they threw three punches LOL ,, the modern fighter would blast them stiff backed ****ed up stance dudes in a hot minute ,,, people get killed today that never happened in the beginning ,, you know why , science , the modern athlete is better in every way than a 100 years ago , we have gone forward in every level of competition ,, I cant believe the lengths you fellas go to to bag Mayweather because thats the real agenda here .

[AntonTheMeh]

Just 9?????

we'd get to see more fights.
plus we'd get less draws

[AntonTheMeh]

You dumbos ,, the 40 round fights went that long because they threw three punches LOL ,, the modern fighter would blast them stiff backed ****ed up stance dudes in a hot minute ,,, people get killed today that never happened in the beginning ,, you know why , science , the modern athlete is better in every way than a 100 years ago , we have gone forward in every level of competition ,, I cant believe the lengths you fellas go to to bag Mayweather because thats the real agenda here .

there was alot of clinching in the olden days.

[Wiley Hyena]

You dumbos ,, the 40 round fights went that long because they threw three punches LOL ,, the modern fighter would blast them stiff backed ****ed up stance dudes in a hot minute ,,, people get killed today that never happened in the beginning ,, you know why , science , the modern athlete is better in every way than a 100 years ago , we have gone forward in every level of competition ,, I cant believe the lengths you fellas go to to bag Mayweather because thats the real agenda here .

Yeah right. I'd love to see a modern day heavy have a go at Jim Jeffries in a 30 round match with 3 oz gloves. Holy ****, it would be criminal. Jeffries would tear a new ******* into our modern day spoiled and overprotected athletes. Oh my god.

[RodBarker]

Yeah right. I'd love to see a modern day heavy have a go at Jim Jeffries in a 30 round match with 3 oz gloves. Holy ****, it would be criminal. Jeffries would tear a new ******* into our modern day spoiled and overprotected athletes. Oh my god.

You have got to be kidding me ,, they didnt know what a vitamin was , they didnt even have a fridge lol , Joe Louis , Mike Tyson , Marciano , Lewis , I could name a mountain of modern era fighters that would not need 30 rounds , they would batter Jeffries in a round ,,, have look at those old fights they dont throw punches and just stand there lol , you are the only sports fan I know that thinks the older timers were better , do you realize every sporting record since the 30s has been broken by a large margin , every single record !

[marsman]

Well somebody crown the man as a scribe we have ourselves a BOxing Scripture...nice work

[squealpiggy]

You dumbos ,, the 40 round fights went that long because they threw three punches LOL ,, the modern fighter would blast them stiff backed ****ed up stance dudes in a hot minute ,,, people get killed today that never happened in the beginning ,, you know why , science , the modern athlete is better in every way than a 100 years ago , we have gone forward in every level of competition ,,

The straight-up stance was the result of the bare-knuckle rules. Once the "mufflers" were worn the art of defense all changed, because the gloves could be used to catch and parry punches. Bare-knuckle fighters used their forearms to block punches and kept their heads out of the way. And when exhibitions of "milling" went on too long it became more of a feat of endurance than of sheer power. Fights would last for upwards of four hours and training was correspondingly different.

Modern fighters train for three-minute rounds. I daresay that if Jim Sullivan were to get into the ring at the MGM grand against a decent heavyweight under modern rules he would be soundly beaten, but if that same heavyweight were to take on Mr Sullivan in a bare-knuckle London Prize Ring battle then the opposite would be true.

I also think it's a fallacy to put all your trust in science. I mean sports science has given us a greater understanding of factors such as nutrition, but ultimately when you prepare for a fight you still do the same thing fighters have always done. Roadwork, hand pads, heavy bag, sparring and strength training. Science hasn't change the way of training fighters much in the last hundred years. And it certainly hasn't changed the human anatomy's resistance to punches.

I cant believe the lengths you fellas go to to bag Mayweather because thats the real agenda here .

No it isn't, not in the slightest. Sometimes a fighter is not in a position to knock out his opponent, and the points system gives him another way to win. This is great, it adds another dimension to the sport. On the other hand when a fighter habitually cruises to a points win it's hard to justify it by changing the goals of the sport to what your guy is doing. Mayweather was way out of his depth in terms of weight and power when he fought Baldomir and De La Hoya, but to me he is one of those guys who uses the art of boxing to try and achieve the main aim in the sport of boxing. He neutralizes his opponent in order to beat him as soon as he can as evidenced in most of his fights. If anything this is aimed at those fighters with KO rates of below 50% for whom a stoppage is noting but a distant memory, last achieved against one of the inevitable line-ups of Joe Roundheels that every decent pro starts his career fighting. If you can win every fight that way then more power to you. But the point of boxing still is to knock your opponent out.

[RodBarker]

All sounds good but I dont buy it ,, the techniques of today are more refined with the same goals , hit the guy in the jaw , there are punches thrown today that werent even thought of back then , there is feints and combinations that would destroy a Jim Sullivan , you could land bolo punches and uppercuts with ease against them ,,, what do you think a fighter like Ali would do to a guys face with bare knuckles , 30 rounds lol , gimme a break Ali would bust you up so bad in one round with bare knuckles it would be a blood bath his jab alone would blow a mans face apart ,,, I watched an ex lightweight world champion in a bar fight go through a 6 ft 200 lb guy like a dose of salts and the guy had fought 8 rounders in kick boxing and his head basicly exploded from one combination ,,, old time fighters with that stand up stance whether they got gloves on or not wont stop a Joe Louis from nailing them to the wall , its about technique and they are better today at punching a man to the head and body than they were 100 years ago ,, I have not a doubt in the world of that .

[joepal]

I keep reading posts, usually in defense of the latest pitty-pat merchant, stating that the object of [the sport of] boxing is "to hit and not be hit". This topic is an attempted rebuff to this assertion.

The history of boxing is a long and complex one. Evidence of organised bouts of single combat between unarmed men dates back as far as 3000 BC and I don't doubt that it occurred long before even that. But the modern sport of professional boxing has far more recent origins.

The London Prize Ring rules were drafted in 1743 and were the first set of formalized rules in the modern game. This was the first record of combat being divided into rounds, each round continuing indefinitely until punctuated by a knockdown. The downed fighter then had thirty seconds to come back to the scratched mark in the center of the ring and be ready to fight. In order to win you had to render your opponent unable to "come up to scratch", whether this be through damage sustained or sheer exhaustion. And with fights lasting upwards of 100 rounds exhaustion was doubtless a factor in more than a few losses. These fights were bare knuckle.

In 1867 under the patronage of the 9th Marquess of Queensberry John Douglas, a list of 12 basic rules were drafted. These are below:



No longer could a man simply fight to win, he had to do so within the confines of the rules. You will notice however that there is no provision for the fight to end unless one or both fighters is unable to continue.

In 1891 the National Sporting Club (with the fifth Earl of Lonsdale as patron) drafted nine extra rules to augment the Queensberry rules. Within those rules was a provision for a system of scoring to determine a winner if no stoppage occurred within the predetermined length of the bout. However such rules were not accepted universally until well into the 1920s when unlimited duration prize-fights were still commonplace.

Even after the 20s and into the 30s fights were still routinely organised for forty rounds, with the result almost inevitably being a stoppage.

By the end of the 30s it was standard that prize fights took place for a maximum of 10 rounds apart from title fights at 15 rounds. Despite the fact that there was now an established means of winning without a knockout (paving the way for skilled defensive wizards like Willie Pep) it was the knockout, the stoppage loss that still held and indeed still holds the imagination of fans of the sport of boxing.

So the sport of boxing has as its climax, as its goal, the knockout. Just as the goal of football is the Touchdown and baseball is the Home Run, the knockout is the ultimate object of a fighter. But what of the art of boxing?

The art of boxing is not the same as the sport of boxing. You could, in theory, become proficient in the sport of boxing without showing much at all of the art of boxing.

The art of boxing is to hit and not be hit. It's the clever use of movement, parries, feints, ducking and slipping to avoid being hit and to carry out your attacks, and it's sometimes beautiful to watch.

In the sport of boxing it is most effective to use the art of boxing in order to execute your aim: To knock out your opponent.

Try not to get the two confused.

LOL What can I say? ULTIMATE OWNAGE! Thanks bro!

[joepal]

You dumbos ,, the 40 round fights went that long because they threw three punches LOL ,, the modern fighter would blast them stiff backed ****ed up stance dudes in a hot minute ,,, people get killed today that never happened in the beginning ,, you know why , science , the modern athlete is better in every way than a 100 years ago , we have gone forward in every level of competition ,, I cant believe the lengths you fellas go to to bag Mayweather because thats the real agenda here .

Who said anything about Floyd? Somebody's is getting real defensive in here!