The sport and the art

[shawn_]

There are minimum standards before you can post in here, you know.

You don't meet them, yet you keep posting. Why is that?

[grayfist]

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.

Very informative!

Didn't know they disallowed shoes back then. And, what were "boots with springs"?

Anyhow, tried to give you good K's, but was told I have still to spread it around some more...

[Wiley Hyena]

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 !

Really? Who is the heavyweight with the most first round KOs?

You talk about boxing evolving like the Model T evolved into today's cars, that there was no technique 100 years ago. That they didn't even have certain punches back then!

Technique changes with the conditions of the game. When you have a 30+ round fight with 3 oz gloves (nothing more than a glorified leather strap), with no neutral corner rule so a downed fighter gets hit as he tries to rise before the count, and almost no regard for the medical condition of the fighter outside virtual brain death....you've got a different game. You talk as if boxing skill is subject to Darwin's theory of evolution...some built up series of genetic mutations and today's generation are supermen. I disagree.

If you know anything about boxing history, then you will know that those guys trained and trained hard. They were great athletes. Research Jim Jeffries for some persective. He was consistently ranked by historians #1 or at the very top of the historical list of heavies up thru the start of Ali's career. And he fought in 1900. The top pros were specialists just like today's participants with their own brand of fighting. They weren't just guys in a bar people were betting on with longhandled mustaches and beer bellies. Those fights were grueling (could go on for hours) and personally destructive. I'd put Sam Langford, Fitzsimmons, and Jeffries in their primes against any of today's top pros to fight under those conditions. Those men were of a different fiber. Today's boxers are involved in a sport where refs stop the fights at the first sign of trouble, have pillows for gloves, and lasts maybe 30 minutes.

Now, on the other hand, nobody would reasonably expect a Langford to give an Ali a reasonably contested fight in today's game. What I'm illustrating here is that its virtually impossible to objectively compare the oldtimers to today's boxer precisely because of the differences within the sport itself.

Just my opinion.........cheers.

[shawn_]

You really need to try getting hit with one of these pillows before you degrade them. It is not nearly as pleasant as you might think.

[Wiley Hyena]

You really need to try getting hit with one of these pillows before you degrade them. It is not nearly as pleasant as you might think.

Didn't say it was pleasant. Did I? But, they are not 3 oz gloves either.

[FISTIC ART]

......................

One thing that is constant in all posts is the angle in which the story tilts in order to have it prove ur point.... and i say as i say to the person who dosent like soup....if u dont like it dont drink it....if u complain about boxing so much u come across as bitter....and perhaps jealous of i dont exactly know what...or who.... if u hate boxing that much just dont watch... or if u only prefer the old school bare fisted fights there are many available on vhs which u can own in ur own home for only 19.95 for 50 of them.... but if u order now we'll throw in a smelly trunk worn by the great bare fisted boxer himself the mysterious mr X.....and u can enjoy them over and over without watching the fights of today on ppv ever again...... the post is like saying well in world war two the war was real in ur face storm the beaches at normandy... fend off the germans at stalingrad....but today it sucks because they push a button and launch some missles and the war is pretty much over in a half hour... u cant compare eras... u cant compare rules from other eras...thus the same experts u always quote say the same thing....now get over it order the tapes but before u go for good...watch dec 8th when ricky hatton gets knocked the **** out in front of his fans..... everyone sing now...""""" way to get layed outttttt...ricky hatton...layed out....ricky hatton...""""...lmaooooooooooooooooooo

[shawn_]

They do not offer nearly as much protection as you might think so don't call them pillows.

[RodBarker]

Technique changes with the conditions of the game. When you have a 30+ round fight with 3 oz gloves (nothing more than a glorified leather strap), with no neutral corner rule so a downed fighter gets hit as he tries to rise before the count, and almost no regard for the medical condition of the fighter outside virtual brain death....you've got a different game. You talk as if boxing skill is subject to Darwin's theory of evolution...some built up series of genetic mutations and today's generation are supermen. I disagree.

Technique evolves through trial and error and competition and it goes hand in hand with mans inbuilt nature of striving to improve and better things and it has moved in forward motion throughout recorded history.
Fighting as an artform is no different to anything else man controls , the basis of last years records dont win this years meet also applys to fighting sports from wrestling to martial arts , why has boxing somehow missed the world sporting evolution ,,,,,, it hasnt !

If you know anything about boxing history, then you will know that those guys trained and trained hard. They were great athletes. Research Jim Jeffries for some persective. He was consistently ranked by historians #1 or at the very top of the historical list of heavies up thru the start of Ali's career. And he fought in 1900. The top pros were specialists just like today's

They may have trained hard as far as effort goes but they didnt have the knowledge in nutrition or human physics to reach anywhere near the level of todays athletes , other sporting fields bare this out , read the record books , man is faster , jumps higher , has more endurance has faster reflexes and is more highlly tuned in every area ,,, like a the F1 car I referred too .

You are allowed you opinion Wiley and I repect it but dont go along with it , I believe Ali or Joe Louis or Mike Tyson with hand wraps on would tear those guys up badly using a kit of power punches that would not only befuddle those pioneers but take them apart ,,, to my way of thinking nothing in a physical competition or for that matter any form of competition from a 100 yrs ago could hold a candle to their modern day counterpart greats , man beast or machine they are all better today .

[squealpiggy]

There are other factors to consider than simple physiological and technical advances that may have occurred. One major consideration is the relative violence of the age. The days of bare knuckle (and I'm well aware that bare knuckle still goes on, but it's not the same as it was in the golden age of the London Prize Ring) were also very violent days in places like Britain and America. A frequent punishment for minor discretions was a beating. Other punishments included Transportation for Life (which involved beatings) and death by hanging which was imposed for as little as theft. Prisons were largely reserved for the use of people who were in debt. As a result the average individual was more accustomed to violence in the 18th and 19th centuries than they are (in the West) today. This elevates the toughness of the fighters, because even by the standard of the day they were considered to be the toughest of men.

As for your comments regarding the musketeers and Robin Hood, you're asking an odd question. Despite their swashbuckling mythos the fabeled Musketeers and also Robin Hood were soldiers. It's like comparing modern day target shooters with modern day military marksmen. Sure the target shooter may win in a target shooting competition, but who would you back in a fight to the death?

I would agree that better understanding of nutrition may give modern fighters an edge, but it is only an edge, it isn't necessarily a decisive advantage. Besides which, the current state in which we trust science to the expense of experience and intuition has led to a number of "discoveries" being debunked by the very next study.

Training fighters hasn't changed much in the last 100 years. They still get up early and run then go back to bed. They then get up, warm up and shadowbox, spar then hit the bags. Then they would do strength and conditioning exercises before relaxing for the evening. This was as true for Jack Dempsey as it is for Floyd Mayweather Jr. Diet has changed, but so has the diet of everybody. Advances in weightlifting knowledge has changed some fighters' approaches to using weights in their training, but there are still trainers who do not believe in weights and many boxers who don't use them.

The only major change since the turn of the century in terms of innate ability is the size of the biggest fighters.

[tills9191]

Floyd would run rings around Jeff Jeffries.