0:02

It's hardcore history.

0:07

I've threatened for a long time. to

0:10

introduce a bunch of sort of niche

0:12

subjects into the hardcore history addendum

0:14

feed. That's why we established

0:16

this alternative feed to

0:18

begin with. Right? So we instead of having to

0:21

have a show that could, you know, hold

0:23

one's attention for four or five hours or

0:25

multiparts in a series, something we

0:28

could just do as a throwaway, you know,

0:30

sort of a it'll be somebody's favorite

0:32

show someday kind of show, but not necessarily

0:34

a broad appeal show when we release it. And

0:36

I think today's might fit

0:39

that bill. I've been threatening to do a show on boxing

0:41

for a long time. And this

0:43

is a show on boxing, but

0:46

I think the way we're gonna frame it might

0:48

drag a bunch of you non boxing

0:51

fans into the conversation also.

0:54

And I was trying to think of the logical

0:56

starting point to this. And I'm gonna

0:59

say maybe the middle nineteen nineties.

1:01

where I had one of those conversations that

1:04

every one of you out there that's a sports fan

1:06

has probably had at one time

1:08

or another, It just happened to be with somebody

1:10

who thought was particularly well

1:13

suited to explain to me the intricacies

1:15

of the situation. In

1:17

the middle nineteen nineties, I was had

1:20

a radio show that bumped

1:22

up against a sports show right afterwards.

1:25

and the sports show right afterwards was hosted

1:27

by a former NFL football

1:30

player who played in the nineteen seventies and the

1:32

nineteen eighties and this is as it was the nineteen

1:34

nineties. The football player's name was

1:36

Russ Francis, and Russ was a tight end

1:38

with the New England Patriots, and then with

1:40

the San Francisco forty nine, there's any

1:42

one Super Bowl with the forty niners. And

1:45

Russ and I would often just sort of chit chat between

1:47

the shows a little bit. And then one day

1:49

we got into this subject and he became

1:51

so heated. and so into the conversation

1:54

that he just said because his show was about

1:56

to start. And normally, we would

1:58

have cut our conversation off by that point. you just

2:00

need to come on and we just need to continue this discussion

2:02

from where we're having it because he was so worked

2:05

up over. But I understand why, especially because

2:07

it literally was questioning

2:09

whether or not he was good enough

2:12

to play, you know, current now currently

2:14

at that time was like the middle nineteen nineties, so it's

2:16

a twentieth century currently as opposed

2:19

to the twenty first century now. But the subject

2:21

is timeless, isn't it? Could the people from the

2:23

past match up today with

2:25

the modern baseball players or basketball

2:28

players or football players or

2:30

on track and field athletes. Right? Just

2:32

standard conversation. And

2:35

the general attitude out

2:37

there, if I could, you know,

2:39

sum up the majority viewpoint, is that they

2:41

could not. or

2:44

conversely, that the very

2:46

best of an earlier era would be

2:48

an average player today. So yes,

2:51

maybe some people from the nineteen fifties

2:53

or nineteen sixties could play in the NFL today.

2:55

Right? The great Jim Brown could play

2:57

in the NFL today, but he wouldn't be

2:59

the great Jim Brown. He might be the more

3:02

average Jim Brown. So that's how

3:04

that line of thinking goes. Now,

3:07

Russ Francis's viewpoint, as

3:09

you might imagine, was you

3:11

darn right the people from the seventies

3:13

at least could play in the middle nineteen

3:15

nineties. And Russ got really

3:18

animated about what makes a good football

3:20

player and all these things. And it wasn't

3:22

always, as you might imagine, the measurables, the

3:25

weight, the height, the speed,

3:28

how high they jumped all. That stuff, a lot of

3:30

it was the intangibles, right,

3:32

the attitude, the toughness,

3:35

all that kind of stuff. But, I remember

3:37

specifically we mentioned Jack Lambert

3:39

who even in the nineteen seventies was an

3:41

undersized linebacker for

3:44

the Pittsburgh Steelers. I think he was like

3:46

two fifteen or something. And, you

3:48

know, Russ was like, are you telling me Jack Lambert

3:50

can't play? and maybe

3:53

you move Jack Lambert to a different position.

3:55

Right? Maybe today he's a strong safety. I don't

3:57

know. But in a sport like football,

3:59

At a certain point, the players from

4:02

the past are just gonna be too slow

4:04

to compete. Right? Or or you're either

4:06

big or you're fast, but you're not big

4:08

and fast. And today, they are big and

4:10

fast. So football is a perfect

4:12

example of a sport where where the players

4:14

of yesteryear on average were a lot

4:16

smaller, a lot slower, maybe less

4:19

athletic, certainly not taking

4:21

advantage of the latest nutrition and

4:23

training methods and all that kind of stuff. and

4:26

I think you could pretty much make a case

4:28

that that same sort of state of affairs

4:30

is the same situation you will find in

4:32

ninety nine percent of the sports and athletic

4:35

competitions out there, except

4:37

for one exception. And

4:40

that's what think makes it kind of an interesting

4:42

conversation today. and that exception

4:45

is amongst

4:46

boxers. Professional

4:48

fighters who box

4:51

and I say that because MMA and all those things

4:53

are very big today, but that's not

4:55

boxing. Boxing by the way

4:57

is an age old sport. Let's understand

5:00

that. I mean, you can go to year. I was just

5:02

at the art museum,

5:04

the med in New York, and they had a statue of

5:07

a Greek Olympician boxer

5:09

from, like, the four hundreds

5:12

BCEs and you you

5:14

see from a distance that he's a boxer. He

5:16

still got they didn't wear boxing gloves. They would

5:18

just sort of wrap their knuckles and

5:20

stuff, but you see it from a distance, you know, wow, that's

5:22

a boxer. So it goes back a long way.

5:25

And boxing has certain elements

5:28

in the sport that make it inherently exciting

5:31

and something that it's hard to take your eyes off

5:33

of. So forget what's involved in terms

5:36

of the fighting part for a minute. Just look at the

5:38

rules of the game and see how

5:40

different boxing is. So for example,

5:44

I can't think and maybe I'm overlooking an

5:46

obvious example, so I apologize if I am.

5:49

I can't think of another sport where

5:51

there's no minimum time limit. where

5:53

you can sit down at a match or a game,

5:56

and it can be over in one second. Right?

5:59

You you you buy the ticket, you take

6:01

the commute, You buy the popcorn,

6:03

you sit down, you're ready to enjoy

6:05

the show, and it's over right when it starts. I can't

6:08

think of another sport that does that, but

6:10

that's boxing. famously happens all

6:12

the time. First

6:14

round knockout. How

6:16

quickly did Mike Tyson knockout Michael

6:19

Spinks was at, like, ninety seconds. That happened

6:21

to Floyd Patterson twice against Sonny List

6:23

and Right? Boom. Over. And you

6:25

might say, well, that's a rip off yet at the same

6:27

time. it forces you to be interested.

6:30

Anything could happen at any time. Right? You can't

6:32

you can't just take your eyes off at like a tennis

6:34

match for a while. You might miss a point. No. You might

6:36

miss the fight. And that works

6:38

very well with the other part of

6:40

the rules of boxing that

6:42

make it inherently more

6:45

watchable than a lot of other sports and that

6:47

is that you can never get so far

6:49

behind that you can't instantly

6:51

win. You could be down the equivalent of a

6:53

hundred to nothing. with thirty

6:56

seconds left and win. That's

6:59

happened a lot of times too. I mean, most

7:01

famously and I had a friend in the bathroom

7:04

when it happened. So it's a perfect example to use

7:06

was when George Forman won his

7:09

second heavyweight champion ship of

7:11

the world, and he was in, like, mid forties, forty

7:13

five years old. I think so that was part of the storyline.

7:16

And he was fighting much younger fighter of

7:18

course, much better shape. more modern

7:21

trained the whole thing, and George

7:23

lost every round. I mean, it was

7:25

a wipeout. My friend goes to the bathroom,

7:28

The fight's almost over, and George Forman

7:30

with well, as far as the audience

7:32

was concerned with two punches, puts

7:35

The heavyweight champion of the world down on his

7:37

back, the heavyweight champion of the world does

7:39

not get up, and George Forman is the champion

7:42

after losing a hundred to

7:44

nothing would have been the equivalent.

7:48

So that's gonna make the kind of sport

7:50

right there, regardless of what it is you

7:52

do in the sport inherently kind of interesting

7:54

and dramatic.

7:57

Now, I'm

7:58

going to sound like a NASCAR fan

8:00

when I say this because the car racing

8:02

fans always tell the non racing fans. You

8:04

know, I know you think we're watching for the crashes, but

8:06

we're not. It's the same way

8:08

with me in boxing. I'm not watching for

8:10

the violence. I know that's

8:12

hard to believe. I don't like the violence. And

8:15

fights where it gets too violent I

8:17

look at as the kind of things you

8:19

stop. Right? When one person

8:21

is out class, you stop it.

8:25

But I got interested in boxing like

8:27

so many of my generation did

8:30

when there was a transcendental figure

8:33

in the sport. somebody that

8:35

just pulled famously pulled in non

8:37

boxing fans. When I was a kid,

8:39

Muhammad Ali, was huge. He

8:42

was probably the biggest sporting

8:44

figure, arguably the biggest

8:46

sporting figure who's ever lived. Top

8:49

five, certainly. And so during the time

8:51

period when I was growing up, I

8:53

might have had no interest in boxing at all, but

8:55

I had an interest in him. And you

8:58

combine some of the things people like about someone

9:00

like Connor MacGregor and all these, you know,

9:02

quickie, funny, can't

9:04

take your eyes off them very entertaining.

9:07

You like him. He sets up or you hate him. And

9:09

he sets up the drama for the fight. He one

9:11

of his idols or one of the people he

9:13

modeled his whole schtick after was

9:15

the professional wrestler, gorgeous George.

9:18

So there was all of those elements in

9:20

play where he got you wanting

9:22

to watch the fight. And then over time,

9:24

As you watch enough Muhammad Ali, fight, you

9:26

start noticing the intricacies of

9:28

the sport, which is always sort of the

9:31

the key. Right? The pathway to becoming

9:33

a fan of any sport understanding the little

9:35

things, the Chrome. And for

9:37

me, what A. J. labeling referred

9:40

to as the sweet science became

9:43

endlessly fascinating. Right? The idea

9:45

of brain over Braun

9:48

of people who were smaller or

9:50

weaker or less athletic, but

9:52

because they were better craftsman could

9:55

beat the you

9:57

know, the bullies in the ring. I mean, it was

9:59

there became a lot of reasons to find

10:02

the sport attractive. And over

10:04

time, I've found myself

10:06

looking at it more and more like the

10:09

old line. There was a fight fan, a famous fight

10:11

fan who said that boxing was

10:14

his guilty pleasure. Well,

10:16

there's more and more guilt and a lot less pleasure,

10:18

especially nowadays when to

10:21

quote Mike Silver, who's a famous

10:24

knowledgeable boxing historian and writer.

10:26

It's like a human demolition derby

10:28

out there now, and that's not what I watch it for.

10:31

So I don't wanna see a bunch of guys who don't have

10:33

any good defense getting hit

10:35

all over the place. Right? It's it's

10:38

not the sweet science anymore at that point.

10:41

In any case, that's how I got into the sport.

10:44

And like everything I do

10:46

and I know many of you, once I get into something

10:48

like this, the history of it, and learning

10:50

about the early days and how how we got

10:52

from there to here, all that stuff becomes endlessly

10:55

fascinating to me. And so I've long read

10:58

a lot about the subject and paid attention

11:00

to old fight films and tried to educate myself.

11:03

And in reading one of my favorite

11:05

books on the entire subject

11:07

to boxing. I came across that

11:10

Russ Francis could the

11:12

athletes of the past compete with the athletes

11:14

of today argument. in a book

11:16

that I just thought made the most counterintuitive

11:19

case you've ever heard on the subject. If

11:22

you're into boxing especially, any

11:25

kind of combat sports or the subject in

11:27

general of human athletic

11:29

performance over time. You

11:32

might really enjoy Mike Silver's book The Ark

11:34

of Boxing, The Rise and Decline of The Sweet

11:36

Science. Now

11:38

Silver is a famous guy in the Boxing

11:41

World. He's been a promoter, an

11:43

inspector with the New York State Atlantic

11:45

Commission. Lots of articles

11:47

on boxing, everything for

11:49

the New York Times ring magazine, boxing

11:51

monthly, ESPN. The

11:54

guy the guy is is a known boxing expert

11:58

And what he does in this book is

12:00

try to make a case that boxing

12:03

is the one athletic competition in

12:05

the modern world where the people

12:07

of the past are superior to the people

12:09

who do it today. And

12:11

the argument isn't just fascinating, but

12:13

the way he makes it is too. He went

12:16

as anyone, you know, when you step

12:18

back and think about it and say, who's qualified to

12:20

make this case? And the answer is no one person

12:22

is. So silver went out and

12:24

got multiple I mean, think it's

12:26

about a twenty to thirty trainers,

12:29

former champions of the past, promoters,

12:32

experts on the subject. and

12:34

brought them into the conversation in a kind of

12:37

a blended oral history where

12:40

they help make a lot of the points and

12:42

it is absolutely fascinating. The

12:46

first part to understand is that in most

12:48

of boxing, it is absolutely a

12:50

perfect setup to have comparison

12:53

of performance over the eras because

12:55

most of boxing has weight glasses.

12:58

Right? So if you are fighting in the

13:00

hundred and forty pound weight class today,

13:03

while we can compare you to a boxer fighting

13:05

in the one hundred and forty pound weight class

13:08

fifty years ago. Right? the whole

13:10

bigger, stronger, faster dynamic

13:13

doesn't apply as much when

13:15

you're taking into account people at the same

13:18

weight over error. right? In football today,

13:20

your average offensive line is probably like

13:22

six foot six, whereas fifty or sixty years

13:24

ago was probably like six foot two. There's

13:26

no rule on that. So it just keeps

13:28

getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But a hundred

13:30

and forty pound weight class is pretty hard

13:32

limit. Right? So the fact that boxing has weight

13:35

classes like that is a better

13:37

apples and apples comparison over the

13:39

different areas if you're wanting to get into training

13:41

and nutrition and all the intangibles.

13:45

But even and I find this to be perhaps

13:47

the most shocking aspect of

13:49

what Mike Silver is saying in the art of boxing,

13:52

even in the one category where they're

13:54

you know, it's everything like one hundred and

13:56

ninety or one hundred and eighty seven in the old

13:58

days and above. And

14:00

it doesn't matter how big you are

14:02

he's suggesting that the people of the past

14:05

would destroy the people of the present.

14:07

I mean, look at the size differences.

14:09

And I you know, when when you wanna talk about

14:12

something as nuanced and

14:14

as intricate and that involves as

14:16

many different factors, including

14:18

the history of the sport as

14:20

this You wanna get experts on the same way

14:22

that Mike Silver wanted to get experts on

14:25

to help make his case. I wanna get experts

14:27

on to help make my case. So we talked

14:29

to Mike Silver for a little bit about some

14:31

of this stuff. For

14:34

example, giant heavyweights

14:36

of today, fighting not so

14:39

giant heavyweights of the past.

14:45

I was watching of a

14:47

a fight the other night on YouTube and

14:49

an older one. It's funny saying older

14:51

one about a Tyson Fury Deontay

14:54

Wilder Fight. and it's a six

14:56

foot nine inch tall guy with an eighty five

14:58

inch reach against a six foot

15:00

seven inch guy with an eighty three inch

15:02

reach. How could somebody like

15:05

a Joe Lewis from one

15:07

of the great ages of boxing's at one of the great heavyweight

15:10

champions like, six one and a half, seventy

15:12

six inch reach. Could a guy like that

15:14

compete with those two massive modern

15:16

boxers? Okay.

15:18

Well, Joe Lewis did fight.

15:20

two opponents who were

15:23

pretty much the same size. One

15:26

was Primo Conera. who

15:28

was about six foot six inches weight, two hundred

15:30

and seventy pounds. And

15:32

Lewis annihilated him in six rounds.

15:34

The fight's on YouTube. You can check it out.

15:37

Another was Buddy Bear, where

15:39

I believe was six foot seven

15:41

inches tall, weighed about two hundred

15:43

and fifty pounds. and

15:46

Lewis stopped him first time

15:48

in the sixth round and the second time in

15:50

the first round. Okay?

15:53

The the the problem is that

15:56

many people think that size

15:59

is everything.

16:01

in in in boxing. If somebody's

16:03

well, let me put it this way. The old

16:05

adage, a good big fighter.

16:07

can always defeat

16:10

a good little fighter, provided they are

16:12

equal in ability. Okay?

16:15

But in the case of these big heavyweights.

16:18

And I'll give Tyson furious,

16:21

too. He moves very unusual for

16:23

for a guy his size. He's light on his

16:25

feet. he moves around. He's not a stationary

16:27

target. But, you know,

16:29

he was dropped twice two or three

16:32

times by wilder.

16:35

It's it's

16:36

a question of can the smaller

16:38

fighter who is

16:40

more accomplished as a boxer knows

16:43

how to get under the punches

16:45

get inside. the

16:48

A guy that size, you could say, well,

16:50

let's say somebody, two hundred pounds, six

16:52

foot one, a really outstanding

16:55

heavyweight is fighting a

16:57

larger opponent who doesn't have to skill.

17:00

That smaller opponent will see that big guy is

17:02

just a bigger target. he

17:04

would actually have Lewis had more trouble

17:06

with smaller quick fighters than

17:09

he did with huge monsters

17:11

like Carnira

17:14

and and Buddy Bayer. The same thing

17:17

with Jack Dempsey, whose nickname was the giant

17:19

killer. Jack Dempsey,

17:21

when he won the title,

17:23

beat he

17:24

weighed about a hundred eighty five pounds.

17:27

Tremendous punch are very fast.

17:29

and he annihilated Jess

17:32

Willard who was six foot six

17:34

over six foot six inches tall, and

17:37

two hundred and fifty pounds. That

17:39

film is available on YouTube. You

17:41

quote Georgie Benton saying famously

17:43

too that if you're over two hundred pounds, you

17:45

have all power you need, and it doesn't matter

17:47

how much bigger the opponent gets at that point.

17:50

That's

17:50

true. It's a matter of physics. Now

17:52

look, if you're gonna match a hundred

17:55

and twenty five pound featherweight against

17:57

a hundred and sixty pound middleweight, then

18:00

you got a problem. because that

18:02

one hundred twenty five pound, by the way,

18:04

just doesn't have enough mass

18:07

to and and musculature

18:09

to generate to hurt that hundred sixty

18:12

pound fighter. You

18:14

know, it it just would be uneven.

18:16

But Ben is right.

18:18

Once you get to two hundred

18:21

pounds. You have enough mass

18:24

and muscularity and strength to

18:26

hurt anybody. especially if

18:28

you can put that two hundred pounds into a punch

18:30

as Joe Lewis did. And

18:33

so as a Marciano wait about one

18:35

ninety At about a sixty eight inch reach, Right.

18:37

There's throw shortest reach of any heavyweight

18:39

champion in history. So

18:42

it's you know, I in my book, in the Arctic Boxing,

18:45

I I went into boxing

18:47

history and listed about fifty

18:49

fights, fifty

18:51

where

18:52

down through the years, where a

18:54

fighter, a heavyweight, was outweighed

18:57

from anywhere from twenty five

18:59

to one hundred pounds. k,

19:01

where the smaller opponent defeated

19:05

the heavier opponent. And

19:09

in in in each case, these, you

19:11

know, nowadays, if you would look at those matches

19:14

on paper, you would say no way is that

19:16

one hundred ninety five to two hundred ten

19:18

pound heavyweight going to take apart

19:21

this two hundred and seventy five pound heavyweight.

19:23

Well, that's not the way it happened. boxing

19:26

is an art and a science. There's

19:29

speed involved. There's technique.

19:33

and very important heart,

19:36

the ability to take a punch,

19:40

Experience, and

19:42

of course, experience naturally experience.

19:45

All these come into play. To

19:47

give you an idea of how much this taller,

19:50

faster, stronger dynamic has

19:52

been around this idea that if you just get bigger

19:54

people, there'll naturally be the heavyweight champion

19:56

of the world. There was a fight that almost

19:58

came off that was going to happen between Muhammad

20:01

Ali. think it was the early seventies, I'm

20:03

guessing here. Between Muhammad Ali,

20:05

and professional basketball player, Will

20:07

Chamberlain. Now, Will was a great

20:09

all round athlete at over seven

20:11

foot tall, and the idea was

20:13

that an over seven foot tall, great

20:16

athlete will give a professional boxer

20:18

who's more like six foot three a

20:21

really hard time. And the press

20:23

conference gets set up. And I guess the story

20:25

is that Ali was being very

20:27

good on his best behavior because he wanted the fight

20:29

to come off too. And when Will Chamberlain

20:32

entered the room, he stood up

20:34

in front of the cameras pointed at him and

20:36

just yelled, timber and

20:40

the book I read said Chamberlain's whole

20:42

demeanor and color changed. He turned around,

20:45

walked out, the fight was off. So

20:47

maybe even the bigger guy

20:50

realizes that size

20:52

is just one factor when you're talking about

20:55

something like boxing. the

20:57

experience question is

20:59

much more fascinating to me though and gets

21:02

into some of these other issues that take this

21:04

out of the realm of a a simple

21:06

boxing or even a simple sports

21:08

examination. There's

21:10

something about human craftsmanship involved

21:13

here. and how deeply someone's

21:15

knowledge and how much experience can count. So let

21:17

me give you an example of what I mean. And

21:19

and silver is all over this in

21:21

his book. If I had to the number one

21:24

thing that he considers the

21:26

most important difference for why

21:28

a boxer of the past can overcome

21:31

any of the things any of the advantages

21:34

a modern boxer would have experiences

21:36

the number one thing. because

21:38

it is so incredibly different.

21:40

I mean, it's not a little bit more experience. It's

21:42

in its multiples of the amount

21:44

of experience. So for example, In

21:47

the early days, you had just like

21:49

you do today, you'd have amateur boxing and a lot

21:51

of these people would fight a lot of amateur fights

21:53

like three rounders. and then they would

21:55

move into the pros and they would fight

21:58

unbelievable numbers of fights. Harry

22:00

Grab had two hundred

22:02

ninety nine fights. two hundred

22:05

and ninety nine professional fights.

22:08

He won more than two hundred and sixty of them,

22:10

by the way, Guys win

22:13

championships today with eighteen fights,

22:15

nineteen fights, twenty fights. Now

22:18

you can be the greatest athlete that's ever

22:20

been produced But a guy with

22:22

two hundred and ninety nine fights is going

22:24

to have some tools in

22:26

his toolbox to offset

22:29

your god given natural

22:31

abilities. It's just first of all, to say that

22:33

that's not true, is to ignore how

22:35

much better the modern day fighter with eighteen

22:37

or twenty fights would be if you

22:39

gave them two hundred or three hundred fights.

22:42

Right? They're gonna be that much better too. So the

22:44

experience counts for something and you

22:46

got a lot more of it back then. Then

22:49

you had another element that silver is

22:51

all over, and it is the kind

22:53

of experience you get This

22:56

is another aspect of sports training

22:58

that's fascinating far beyond

23:00

just the niche of boxing. It's this

23:03

idea about how much better competition

23:06

makes you better. Right? How steel,

23:08

sharpen steel is the saying goes? I

23:11

think silver uses the analogy

23:13

of playing tennis with

23:16

some people that are not as

23:18

good as you are. And over time,

23:20

that means you're getting away with miss stakes and

23:22

your game gets sloppy because it doesn't matter

23:24

if you're playing poorly, you're still going

23:26

to win as opposed to playing

23:29

against people that are better than you are.

23:31

and simply do not embarrass yourself and

23:33

have a chance of competing, you have to really

23:35

tighten your game up. Right? It encourages a

23:39

better performance. Right? Steel, sharpen steel.

23:42

But boxing doesn't even pretend to

23:44

do that. It's the only sport I can

23:46

think of where the idea of having the

23:48

best face, the best, is not

23:50

necessarily a hundred percent good thing.

23:52

There might be some downside. Do I really want

23:54

my undefeated guy fighting that

23:57

really tough challenger who can beat him when

23:59

I can have him fight a bunch of stiffs who

24:01

have no chance at beating him and make

24:04

even more money and not lose the championship.

24:06

I mean, there's a let's just say

24:08

there's cross purposes on the question

24:10

of steel sharpening steel in boxing

24:12

in a way that there isn't in most other sports.

24:17

Everyone understands that we've

24:19

expanded the number of weight classes

24:21

since the old days. used to be like eight. Now

24:23

there's lot more than eight. and we have more

24:25

sanctioning bodies than ever. Right? You know,

24:27

in the I can think of some off the top of my head,

24:30

WBCWBAIBCIBFI

24:32

mean, just and all of them with their own

24:34

champions. And so we have a lot more challengers

24:37

in the old days and a lot fewer championship

24:39

slots. Today, we have a lot more championship

24:42

slots. for fewer challengers, it

24:44

means that the talent pool is diluted. And

24:46

in the old days, by the time somebody got a

24:49

chance to face the champion

24:51

to try to win the title. They

24:53

had had usually dozens more fights

24:55

on average than the people today. and

24:58

they had fought people who were on

25:00

average themselves more

25:02

battle tested, more experience, and better

25:04

fighters. The steel had sharpened

25:07

the steel. And by the time you had people

25:09

facing off at the top levels, these

25:11

were people who not only had tons of experience,

25:13

who not only had fought people that force

25:16

them to up their game, these

25:18

are people that fought so often

25:21

that their skills were sharp.

25:23

And this is another one of those really unquantifiable

25:26

things. How do you try to figure out

25:28

the difference between a fighter that fights every

25:31

three weeks? and a fighter that fights twice

25:33

a year. You know it's going to have

25:35

an impact, but you can't really quantify how

25:37

much. If a tennis

25:39

player to go back to the tennis analogy, only had

25:41

two tennis matches a year. Even if you

25:43

practiced a lot, I'm going to

25:46

assume you're not going to be as sharp as

25:48

if you had three tennis matches

25:50

a a month. Right? In

25:52

the old days, these guys fought a

25:55

lot. Nowadays, they don't

25:57

fight much at all. how much does

25:59

something like that impact what

26:01

would happen if we could bring a fighter from

26:03

the past out of the time machine today

26:06

and put him in a ring with the fighters

26:08

of the present. Mike

26:11

Silver has some thoughts about this question

26:13

of sharpness and what's known

26:15

as ring rust, and

26:18

what a difference it might have made.

26:23

And you brought up sharpness to a lack of

26:26

sharpness because some of these fighters back in

26:28

the day who were more like lunch

26:30

pail, go to work hard hat type blue

26:32

collar guys are fighting every

26:34

three weeks or something. And these days,

26:37

one of the great fighters is probably gonna have

26:39

one or two fights a year how much

26:41

does the ring rust kill you in those kinds

26:43

of situations? I mean, if you bring your fighter

26:45

back out of the if you bring Harry Greb out of

26:47

the time machine today, put him in against

26:50

a welterweight or a middleweight today.

26:52

What's what are we gonna notice? I mean, is he

26:54

much better defensive fighter than the modern

26:56

guy? How's that gonna look to us?

26:59

Harry Gabb is is not the perfect

27:01

example to do that. Harry Gabb

27:04

like Muhammad Ali, like Henry Armstrong. He

27:06

was singular how to like, a style

27:08

of his own -- Yeah. -- it couldn't be duplicated. He

27:10

was he was an outlier. He just

27:13

he had a a style that nobody could solve

27:15

nobody could even imitate him successfully.

27:18

So I I would say go back to the

27:20

more traditional fighter. Tony Gonzalez.

27:23

Tony Kennesenary, Bonnie Ross, Mickey

27:26

Walker, Tommy Locker, and

27:28

even, you know, that that those type

27:30

of fighters, like Williams. Benny Leonard who

27:32

looked like it in assurance salesman. Yes.

27:35

Exactly. Exactly. This didn't

27:38

look like a fighter at all. But

27:40

they these when you say about, you know,

27:42

fighting twice a year as opposed to, you

27:45

know, twice a month, which a lot of those guys

27:47

did. Well, one

27:49

of the most important aspects of being

27:51

successful in boxing is a timing.

27:53

Your ability to time a punch. Okay?

27:56

And there is such thing as Ring

27:58

Rust. We've seen it with with

28:01

when Mohammed Ali came back after three and

28:03

a half year layoff. he

28:05

he was rusty. He he was getting hit with

28:07

punches that he never would have gotten hit

28:09

with. You know,

28:11

you have to start fighting

28:14

more often to get your timing down,

28:16

your sense of judgment and distance. This

28:20

this with with repetitive fights,

28:23

space not too far apart. This is automatic.

28:27

If you're only fighting two or three times a year,

28:30

fight space four or five months apart,

28:32

it becomes more difficult to get the timing

28:35

down. So, of course, the the fighters

28:37

who fought more often would have a that

28:39

would be a distinct advantage. just

28:42

in their in their sense of timing

28:44

and ability to judge distance

28:47

just because they were more active. as

28:49

I say, like anybody, whether it's a surgeon,

28:52

salesman, anybody

28:55

who is doing it more often

28:57

will be more proficient at it. In

29:00

addition to the part where he's

29:03

quoting these many different expert voices,

29:05

which is extremely effective, one

29:07

of the other things that Silver will do sometimes

29:10

in the book the arc of boxing is really

29:12

utilize photographs in a way that

29:14

make his point for him and one

29:16

of the ones that's the most jarring is he

29:18

has two photographs on opposite sides

29:20

of the page from each other. On the left

29:22

side is a picture so best

29:24

just alone from one of the Rocky movies,

29:26

not Rocky one, one of the later ones.

29:29

And he looks like a giant you

29:31

know, body builder, six pack

29:34

abs, big, you know, arms, the

29:36

whole thing, and he's flexing in the shot

29:38

with a he's a championship belter

29:40

on his waist. This is the

29:42

conception right of a boxer. But

29:45

on the right hand side of the page is an actual

29:47

photo from the nineteen thirties,

29:49

I think. of Jack

29:52

Dempsey. The ferocious Jack

29:54

Dempsey, the guy Mike Tyson liked so much and

29:56

with the exception of the peekaboo style,

29:58

which was a custom model thing, He

30:01

often said he influenced his approach you

30:03

know, how he went after opponents to

30:05

what Jack Dempsey did with both hands, right, punching

30:08

with bad intentions. But

30:10

when you look at Dempsey's body, especially

30:12

juxtaposed next to

30:14

the Rocky image, which is

30:16

our popular conception, Jack Dempsey

30:19

doesn't look like he's got a boxer's build at

30:21

all. And yet Jack Dempsey has

30:24

the right build for boxing in the

30:26

same way that there's a build you want. or

30:28

that you acquire naturally if you

30:30

just swim and you're a swimmer. In

30:32

boxing, if you just do the boxing,

30:35

and the exercises that boxers have

30:37

always done and all those kinds of things

30:39

you look like Jack Dempsey was the introduction

30:41

of a whole bunch of things that boxers

30:44

never did, like weight training, that

30:46

would turn, you know, somebody into

30:48

the stallone Hollywood caricature. But

30:52

here's what's weird. Silver says

30:54

in his book that people

30:56

saw the Rocky movies, you know, young

30:58

box and decided when they went into boxing

31:00

that they wanted to look like that. What's

31:03

more? You have this growth starting

31:05

in about the early nineteen eighties with these

31:08

real sort of fatty. Let's call them

31:10

fatty nutrition and

31:14

strength experts. And don't get me wrong. There's real

31:16

to go to school for many, many years to do this

31:18

job. But what Silver points

31:20

out is that unlike every other

31:22

sport because of the interplay and all the different

31:25

things that go into box saying,

31:27

it's really hard to just simply say,

31:29

wow. Well, you need this muscle strength and

31:31

so we'll develop a machine that just works

31:33

that it doesn't really work that way.

31:35

What's more, you're trying to do something

31:38

in boxing that doesn't

31:40

lend itself to most of

31:42

these sorts of strengthening kinds

31:44

of exercises that work out so

31:46

well in so many other sports. For example, have

31:48

you ever played a game of hot hands that's

31:51

what we call it in the US, although I know that the

31:53

other countries have different names. But it's the game

31:55

where you put your hands, palms

31:57

up, and then somebody puts their hands, palms

31:59

down on your hands. And

32:01

then you, the person with the hands

32:04

facing upward, try to slap the

32:06

hands of the person whose hands are touching

32:08

yours. before they can pull their hands

32:10

away. If they pull their hands away

32:12

and you fake them out, you get to slap their hands.

32:15

If they get slapped, they have to keep playing.

32:17

If they can pull their hands away before you can slap

32:19

them, you have to exchange positions with

32:21

them. But that game is based on quick

32:23

reflexes movement and speed.

32:25

You know, speed of using your hands.

32:28

Right? That's a good analogy for

32:30

what boxing does well. And anything

32:32

that would slow down how quickly you could get

32:34

your hands out of the way in the game of hot hands

32:37

would also hurt you in a boxing match.

32:40

And interestingly enough, on another

32:42

page, silver has a photo

32:44

of a ballet dance a

32:46

male ballet dancer who

32:48

also used to happen to be a

32:51

boxer and the ballet dancer talks

32:53

about how the very same

32:55

sorts of strength and muscularature

32:58

that a ballet dancer has is

33:00

exactly the kind that makes a killer

33:02

boxer and it looks much more like

33:04

Jack Dempsey than Rocky Balboa looks

33:06

like, you know, any of the boxers from

33:08

the golden age of boxing. The other thing that

33:11

you don't have and it's another one of these aspects

33:13

of the lost martial arts

33:15

if you're a fan of say

33:17

Western sword fighting from

33:20

the middle ages, which I am. You'll

33:22

know that that's a lost art. that

33:25

somewhere along the line, we stopped

33:27

teaching people. The, you

33:29

know, thousands of year old techniques

33:31

are fighting with a Western style sword.

33:34

and experts have been trying

33:36

and reenactors have been trying through

33:38

the use of the few technical manuals

33:40

that existed from Mac then to try to piece

33:42

together what it must have been like. Right?

33:44

Something that the kendo swordsman

33:47

in the far east have managed to keep

33:49

alive in terms of their timeline

33:51

of historical, you know, knowledge, the craft

33:54

that's been lost in western long sword

33:56

fighting in the same way that the old

33:58

trainers who used to train all the great champions

34:01

in what is universally acknowledged

34:03

as the golden age of boxing, their

34:05

skills have died out. There's

34:08

nobody to teach the young boxers

34:10

today, the conditioning, and

34:12

the art itself. The finer points

34:14

is the way Mike Silver puts, right, the little teeny

34:17

things that when you add up all

34:19

the little teeny things, make all the difference

34:21

in a big fight, those people aren't

34:23

around anymore. They have literally

34:25

gone the way of the dodo.

34:28

And because of that, even if you wanted

34:30

to try to recreate this

34:34

being from fifty,

34:36

seventy five years ago, you

34:38

know, that if if you could take the DNA

34:41

and bring them back to life, you couldn't recreate

34:43

this person because we wouldn't have anybody to impart

34:45

the skills to them that they

34:47

learned in their formative years.

34:51

Then there's the other thing that modern technology

34:53

brings to the table steroids,

34:55

you know, artificial chemical

34:58

enhancements that someone today might

35:00

employ, and there

35:02

were some interesting serial that was in

35:04

Silver's book about this too, where he talked

35:06

about some boxers who may

35:08

or may not. People don't generally advertise

35:11

this stuff. have tried to take the

35:13

shortcut of something like steroids to help

35:15

them in the ring, only to find out

35:17

that it looks like that's the best way to

35:19

phrase the steroidal studies, but it looks like what

35:21

happens to boxers who use steroids

35:24

as they run out of gas. And

35:26

some of these boxers that were rumored to be on the

35:28

stuff ran out of gas famously in some

35:30

of these fights, So that's an interesting

35:33

aspect too. So you say, well, these days they'd be

35:35

using human growth hormone, still might

35:37

not let you beat Tony's egg back in

35:39

the day. for

35:41

Sugar Ray Robinson. I don't know what you're gonna

35:43

do to beat Sugar Ray Robinson. And that whole

35:45

question of the hot hands skill, like, what do

35:47

you need to play hot hands If

35:49

you're just born, like,

35:52

good at that, you're just born good at it. Mohammed

35:54

Ali had one of the fastest jobs you ever saw.

35:56

You can't fix that with weights. Right? Push ups

35:58

and chin ups aren't gonna make that

35:59

faster. And Sugar Ray Robinson

36:02

had the same thing. That's sort of punch speed

36:04

or punch power. Silver has a line in

36:06

his book where he he goes over all

36:08

these great old punchers,

36:11

people that were absolute murderers, and

36:14

then says none of them ever touched away, he writes

36:16

quote. Old school trainers understood

36:19

that pumping up the size of arm,

36:21

back, leg, and shoulder muscles with

36:23

an aggressive weight training program did

36:26

not correlate to an increase in

36:28

power. Punching power he writes

36:30

is a function of balance, leverage,

36:33

coordination, speed, and timing.

36:35

A BOXER HAS TO BE ABLE TO SNAP HIS

36:38

PUNCHES. THE MOST EFFECTIVE PUNCHURES

36:40

IN THE HISTORY OF THE SPORT. JOE LOUIS

36:43

Jack Dempsey, Rocky Marciano, Sunny

36:46

Liston, Jimmy Wild, Bob

36:48

Fitzsimons, Stanley Kessel,

36:50

Sugar Ray Robinson, Sandy

36:52

Sadler, Archie Moore, Henry

36:55

Armstrong, Bob Foster, Alexis

36:57

Argueo, Roberto Duran, never

37:00

included weight training in their daily workout

37:02

routines. None of these superpunchers

37:05

had the type of unnatural bulging muscularity

37:08

one often sees among today's boxers.

37:11

End

37:11

quote. Boxing

37:14

the key is to develop speed. And

37:17

most fighters, when they go into it, they

37:19

they they have enough strength through their regular

37:21

training. They don't need weightlifting. The

37:23

old time train is the stained weightlifting. It

37:26

was damaging to the fire. It slowed them up.

37:28

And just to give you an example, if I can

37:30

quote from my book here about,

37:33

you know, athletes today being

37:35

bigger, stronger, faster, why doesn't that apply

37:37

to boxing? Aren't all athletes better

37:39

today? Boxing is on a different

37:41

level, on a superficial level.

37:44

The newer is always better attitude

37:46

towards athletic excellence. I'm

37:48

quoting you from my book, appears to be valid.

37:51

except for one important caveat. A

37:53

box's performance unlike that of

37:55

a swimmer, track and field athlete, or weight

37:57

lifter, cannot be defined in terms

37:59

of finite measurement. boxing's

38:02

interaction of athleticism, experience,

38:05

technique and psychology is

38:08

a far more complex activity than

38:10

just running, jumping, lifting, or

38:12

throwing. And to blindly state

38:15

that today's top professional boxes

38:17

better than their predecessors, simply

38:19

because measurable athletic performance

38:22

has improved in other sports. whose

38:24

winners are determined by a stopwatch ruler

38:27

or scale is analogous to

38:29

suggesting a singer is great

38:31

only because he is capable of reaching higher

38:34

note than anyone else. Of

38:36

course, no reasonable person would agree with that

38:38

statement because it totally ignores

38:40

the complex nuances of the

38:42

singer's craft, such as timber,

38:44

inflection, vocal range, and phrasing.

38:47

that many people without even realizing it

38:49

applied the same logic to boxing oblivious

38:52

as they are to the complex nuances of

38:55

the box's craft. See,

38:58

when when when you have people

39:00

a lack of quality teachers,

39:03

people who don't really know what to do.

39:05

They they begin to grasp at

39:07

certain ideas that they don't really understand.

39:10

So as crazy as it sounds, the rocky

39:12

films influence these younger

39:14

trainers. who said, hey,

39:17

football players are using weight training.

39:20

You know, why why shouldn't boxers?

39:22

They need to get stronger. it didn't understand

39:25

that with

39:27

weight training, the boxes begin to throw

39:29

their punches in a wider arc. They

39:31

can't get them all fast enough. that

39:33

the old time trainers who

39:35

who lived this sport day in and day

39:38

out, their whole lives, they understood

39:41

that wasn't to be done. nobody

39:44

trained better than Rocky Marciano,

39:46

okay, or Joe Lewis. As

39:49

as Joe Fraser, quote Joe Fraser in my book,

39:51

you said if it was good enough for them, It's

39:53

good enough for me, and he trained

39:55

in the old school way. So modern

39:57

methods don't necessarily mean

39:59

better.

39:59

and and that's certainly the case in

40:02

boxing which has

40:03

devolved, not evolved.

40:06

What that Joe Fraser quote

40:09

by silver Points

40:11

out though is that when it comes to something like

40:14

physical conditioning, that's

40:17

all recoverable or

40:19

preservable stuff. Right? That's

40:21

information that someone can write down

40:24

and you could open the gym tomorrow like

40:26

Fraser did and say we're only going to

40:29

build you up the old fashioned way and

40:31

and have enough information to do it. that's

40:34

not lost information. It might

40:36

be considered outdated by

40:38

some, but but it's known. What

40:41

what is truly lost though

40:43

is the stuff that would have made the

40:45

boxers of the past so much better. It's the

40:47

technique. Right? It's the little

40:50

things. And this is

40:52

in Silver's

40:54

book, and he has several different quotes. I mean,

40:56

for example, he

40:58

quotes one of his experts in the book

41:00

as Mike Capriano, Jr. who

41:03

was the son of one of these great

41:05

trainers, the guy who trained Jake

41:07

Lemada, the raging bull, in addition

41:09

to a lot of other people, and then junior

41:12

followed in his father's footsteps becoming

41:14

an amateur fighter trainer manager. He

41:18

was the head coach for the Camp Luzun

41:21

marine corps boxing team.

41:24

And he says about the little

41:26

techniques. So let's not talk in generalities. What

41:29

do we mean when we say little tech needs.

41:31

And Capri Anone junior says,

41:33

quote, there

41:34

are no super skilled boxers

41:37

like tipi Larkin, Billy Graham,

41:39

or Maxi Shapiro. I don't

41:41

see them around. There were many

41:43

different types of fighters, and you'd see many

41:45

different styles. And that's probably what

41:48

made them better fighters. I don't see anyone

41:50

with that type of skill today in any

41:52

weight division. Some of today's

41:54

fighters look good and they seem to have

41:57

the natural instincts and maybe somebody's

41:59

teaching them, but I don't see the moods.

42:02

They need more seasoning. He

42:04

continues, quote. You

42:05

don't see a fighter bend and weave

42:07

in anymore. I mean, we might see

42:09

somebody bob back and forth and move

42:11

in, but that's not your classic bend

42:14

and weave move. Even Tyson

42:16

never did that. He'd bob

42:18

back and forth, but he just distracted you.

42:20

And then he'd throw one of those overhand

42:23

punches. Tyson bullied his

42:25

way in. he bobbed, but

42:27

he didn't weave. He tried to overpower

42:29

you, and then when he couldn't overpower you, he

42:31

got stymied. Tyson really had no

42:33

moves. We

42:36

don't see fighters today sliding

42:38

in, he says. We don't see

42:40

the faints, the hook off a faint.

42:43

stepped to the right and uppercut, moving,

42:45

grabbing the elbow and spinning the fighter.

42:48

We don't see any of that today because it's gone,

42:50

and nobody knows how to teach it. You

42:52

don't see any of these fighters making

42:54

the same moves as the old time

42:56

fighters? Absolutely not. The

42:58

fans today never saw these fighters.

43:01

End quote. He

43:03

then says that kraftiness is

43:06

missing. You know, there's ring kraftiness.

43:09

He says quote, kraftiness is missing.

43:11

Moore, meaning Archie Moore. Moore

43:13

was crafty. Demchy was crafty.

43:16

Roberto Duran had great instincts

43:18

and was crafty. not fainting,

43:21

no body punches, and no craftiness.

43:24

These are the hallmarks of today's top

43:26

fighters. End

43:28

quote. Now

43:29

this all kinda sounds like sour

43:31

grapes when you hear it, but these guys all know

43:33

it sounds like sour grapes and so they continually

43:36

say It's not just some old man

43:38

saying they were better in my day. Ask anybody.

43:42

Well,

43:42

one of the people and again, this is

43:44

one of the things I really like about the book. These experts

43:47

in air quotes come from a wide

43:49

variety of backgrounds, but they usually box

43:51

themselves at one time or another. But

43:53

one of these guys in the book, Ted Linski,

43:55

is a PHD neuroscientist who

43:59

also used to box. And he has

44:01

an interesting way of addressing

44:04

the questions that I often come up with in

44:06

my own mind, which is I'm kind of a

44:08

humanitarian kind of nice guy. So

44:10

why would I like a sport with so

44:12

much you know, human demolition.

44:14

And his point is, that's not what

44:16

the sport's supposed to be. And the fact

44:18

that it is human demolition now

44:21

is a perfect example that shows

44:23

you right to your face. It's not what it used to be.

44:25

And

44:25

Linski, the neuroscientist, says,

44:28

quote, If today's fans

44:30

were shown some full length films

44:32

of Sugar Ray Robinson, they

44:34

would think that it's something different and

44:36

unusual but they wouldn't understand

44:39

what he was doing. It's a different language.

44:42

There's always been fighting, he says,

44:44

but boxing was something different. I

44:47

very rarely watch fights anymore these

44:49

days. I can't watch an entire

44:51

fight. It's kind of depressing to watch.

44:54

But if this was what boxing was when

44:56

I was a kid, I would be embarrassed

44:58

for having spent so much time watching it

45:01

because it's nothing but brutality. There's

45:03

no beauty in this. It's fighting.

45:05

Nothing else. There used to be

45:08

skill and grace in conjunction with

45:10

the brutality. even sluggers

45:12

were smart, take a look at Reuben

45:14

Hurricane Carter. He didn't take

45:16

a punch to land a punch.

45:19

You know, he says, we've had

45:21

discussions about people being actually

45:23

knowledgeable about boxing. If

45:25

you watch fights nowadays as a fan,

45:28

If you can sit through an entire fight,

45:30

then you don't know boxing. I don't

45:32

care if you know statistics. I don't care

45:34

if you could give me the history back to the Romans.

45:37

You don't understand boxing itself. If

45:39

you can sit and watch this thing, what

45:42

boxing has become and what fighting

45:44

is, then you don't like boxing.

45:46

You like fighting. You like brawling.

45:49

And it's not the same thing. If

45:51

you compare what boxing once was

45:54

and what it has become, This is

45:56

checkers in comparison to chess.

45:58

End

45:59

quote. But

46:01

in the same way that The

46:03

training of these boxers

46:06

is a lost art. Right? The institutional

46:08

memory is gone. You can actually

46:11

say the same thing about the people who watch

46:13

the sport as was implied

46:15

in the quote we just read. Today's

46:17

boxing fan not only wouldn't know what

46:20

they were looking at,

46:21

they might not like it when they saw

46:23

it. And

46:24

I asked Mike Silver about

46:27

that too.

46:31

I'm

46:31

wondering if they would like what they saw if they

46:33

saw good match because you had mentioned you used

46:35

phrase that I like and I'm gonna steal a

46:37

human demolition derby when you were

46:39

talking about some of these brawls where

46:42

it might be a bloodlust enjoyment

46:45

kind of thing. But you mentioned yourself and I believe

46:47

you quote somebody else saying that they don't

46:49

wanna watch that, that you might think that

46:51

race car fans are watching for the

46:53

crack up but boxing fans

46:55

who in the old days were watching for,

46:57

can a guy hit and not be hit back? Is

46:59

he defensively skilled? Can he move well?

47:02

These days if you saw a fight like that modern

47:05

fight fans who grew up in the post Tyson

47:07

era might think that that's a boring

47:09

fight, that what you want or two guys with no

47:11

defense Would a modern fight

47:13

fan enjoy a well thought fight

47:15

from the nineteen forties?

47:17

No. No. Very few would.

47:20

In fact, if they watched Willie

47:22

Pepp. In in fact, they might

47:24

they might not know what he's doing to

47:27

them, you know, being used to slugfest

47:29

and and the Arturo Gotti

47:32

type fighter, not

47:35

to to Minashemi had great heart, but,

47:37

you know, the skill level was basically,

47:39

that of a tough guy that just tried to

47:41

out punch his opponent. I'm not sure

47:44

they would recognize what Willie Pepp was doing

47:46

in the ring. It's the

47:49

the younger fans and again,

47:51

a lot of it has to do with the fact that mixed martial

47:53

arts is gaining in popularity. that

47:57

the fight fans today wanna see knockouts.

48:00

And

48:01

home runs in baseball, and I mean,

48:03

you can take it across the board.

48:05

you got it. And and power serves and,

48:07

you know, tennis and and

48:10

it's they just wanna see

48:12

the power. They wanna see the knockouts. And

48:15

that's, you know, that's what's exciting to

48:17

them. They're they're not interested in seeing a

48:19

guy splitting, you know, moving in and

48:21

out, jabbing, not getting hit and

48:24

and that's a shame because boxing

48:27

is an art, and it's it's a brutal sport.

48:29

I mean, I'm not diminishing the danger of it.

48:31

Well, in fact, I'm writing a current book and

48:34

that that that deals with the danger

48:36

of boxing and how to mitigate those dangers

48:39

under the current circumstances. and

48:42

and there's certain things that can be done.

48:44

I don't know if if the sport will allow

48:46

it or do it. But no.

48:49

Your your premise is correct. I I think

48:51

that's not what they want to see, and that's sad

48:53

because it just means more damage.

48:56

In

48:57

addition, and this applies to

48:59

all sports, but more so in boxing.

49:02

The intangibles are such a huge

49:04

part of things. Right? maybe

49:07

not more than the measurables. It depends

49:09

on the sport. Right? You can say that the

49:11

five foot nine inch kid who wants

49:13

to be an NBA center has

49:16

everything you want but the height, but

49:18

that might not be enough. But you

49:20

might say the reverse about the seven foot

49:22

five inch tall person too. Right? Then he's

49:24

got all the measurables, but none of the

49:26

intangibles. In boxing, the intangibles

49:29

are Well, more

49:31

important than in any other sport you can think

49:33

of because one of the intangibles is somebody

49:36

is hurting you

49:37

physically. And

49:39

what that means is the kind of

49:41

people who can

49:43

be good athletes in boxing

49:45

have to have something that most others

49:48

boards don't require. You have

49:50

to be able to take physical

49:52

punishment damage and

49:54

somebody attacking you and

49:57

still perform at a high athletic level.

50:00

There's both mental and physical toughness

50:02

involved. And

50:05

part of the reason why this earlier era

50:08

may actually have an advantage

50:11

is the un quantifiable questions. Something we

50:13

talk in history shows about a lot

50:15

because it's it's clearly there,

50:17

but you can't measure it or quantify

50:20

it, and that's the question of toughness. I

50:22

was

50:22

intrigued by one of the points made in the book

50:25

that the reason defense was so

50:27

much better back in the day is not just

50:29

because it's something you wanna have and nobody

50:31

wants to get hit. But because these people

50:33

thought so often and needed the money

50:35

so badly. Right? You could just make enough

50:37

for rent with a fight maybe in some of these

50:39

eras, that you had to be able to fight in three

50:42

weeks or a month to pay your next rent

50:44

so you couldn't be too beat up in this

50:46

fight. Same

50:46

thing with the trainers. They had to make sure their

50:49

boxer could box because they needed to eat.

50:51

So there were all these economic incentives

50:54

to perform a certain way, athletically,

50:56

it's interesting. The mental toughness

50:58

part though is unlike, you

51:01

know, anything else I run into

51:03

in any other sport. And think about I remember

51:06

when I was watching a film on there's

51:08

NFL films film about

51:10

the sort of football players that they had

51:12

in the nineteen fifties. And they made a big deal

51:14

to point out that so many of these people

51:17

had actually been in the second world war and

51:19

seen combat. and that

51:21

after combat, the sport

51:23

of football had a sort of a different feel

51:25

to it than when they were college players

51:27

and young, wide eyed kids. Well,

51:30

you could make the same case about all these fighters.

51:32

I mean, the greatest eras in boxing are after

51:34

both world wars. if

51:37

these people weren't combat veterans themselves,

51:40

they came from a society that produced

51:42

those kinds of people, and then a depression So

51:44

there's two quotes from this book that stood out to

51:46

me. The first one was by one of Mohammed

51:49

Ali's Olympic teammates

51:51

in the nineteen sixty Rome Olympics that fought

51:53

of the United States, Wilbur, Streeter

51:55

McClure. And I like

51:57

his because he lays out the entire premise

52:00

of this conversation we're having the idea that

52:02

in every other sport you can think of,

52:04

the athletes have gotten better, except

52:07

this one. And he's quoted

52:09

by Mike over in the book is

52:11

saying, quote, boxing

52:12

in my opinion is the only

52:15

sport in which the participants haven't gotten

52:17

better since the nineteen thirties forties

52:20

and fifties. Football players

52:22

today are better than the ones who were playing in

52:24

the fifties. It's the same with basketball

52:27

and baseball. The fighters of

52:29

today couldn't even hold a candle to the

52:31

fighters of the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies.

52:33

They just couldn't do it. They were

52:35

too tough and too strong and

52:38

too savvy and too skilled. Part

52:40

of the reason is owing to the fact that

52:42

they fought more frequently. You have

52:44

champions today who fight once or twice

52:47

a year. Anybody who applies his

52:49

craft to any trader profession and

52:51

performs it only twice a year can't

52:54

be good. You just cannot develop

52:56

that way.

52:57

and

52:58

The

53:00

other quote and I read this one

53:02

to mister Silver and got his reaction

53:05

in the next

53:06

sound clip was from

53:08

boxing trainer Teddy Atlas who by

53:10

the way, once upon a time, started with a very

53:12

young Mike Tyson. Right? And

53:14

Teddy Atlas is trying to address this

53:17

preoccupation. we all have and we're trained

53:19

to have. Right? We live in the era of measurables.

53:21

How how high did that guy jump? What's

53:23

his height? What's his weight? What's his forty time?

53:25

And Teddy Atlas is basically saying

53:27

forget about that. You have people

53:30

here who are mental monsters that

53:32

you're going up against in the sport

53:34

where that's a key there's

53:36

your key measurable. Right? Are you a are you

53:38

a mental monster and how much of a mental

53:40

monster are you? And

53:42

Atlas says, quote,

53:44

So my question to the guys of

53:46

today's era that say that

53:48

size is too much. Is where

53:50

are these big heavyweights ever gonna find a

53:52

way to deal with that experience? Were

53:55

they ever gonna find a way to deal with that

53:57

science? Were they ever gonna find

53:59

a way to deal with that mental toughness? because

54:01

today's fighters are depleted of these

54:04

qualities. Now, italicized, depleted

54:07

of it. The old timers had

54:09

all of those qualities in that earlier

54:11

era. They had the experience and

54:13

they knew how to deal with these things. So

54:16

my question would be, who's in

54:18

danger here? end

54:19

quote, he means the very

54:21

big super heavyweights of today or

54:23

the relatively small heavyweight to the earlier

54:26

era Now we'd mention though

54:28

that heavyweight is a little bit different because that's

54:30

the only weight class where there's no maximum.

54:33

In the other weight class, a hundred and forty

54:35

pound fighter in nineteen forty, would

54:37

still be fighting a hundred and forty pound fighter

54:39

today. So that might even make

54:41

things like mental toughness and all that.

54:44

and even, you know, larger

54:46

determinant of how things turned out.

54:48

But Atlas continues about this

54:50

size question in the super heavyweight division

54:52

quote. before

54:54

you talk to me about the two

54:56

hundred and forty pounder versus

54:58

the hundred and ninety or two hundred

55:00

and five pounder, my first question

55:02

would be, before we could even sanction

55:04

this match to explain it to

55:06

me because I don't think it would be fair

55:09

to the bigger fighter. Explain

55:11

to me how this two forty

55:13

pound brat. This spoiled brat

55:16

is going to deal with this monster

55:18

he means from the past. WHO WAS one hundred

55:20

and sixty FIGHTS WHO'S Fought

55:22

EVERY GOOD FIGHTER IN THE WORLD SINCE HE'S

55:25

BEEN FIGHTING WHO KNOWS EVERY TRICK

55:27

IN THE BOOK and who's as mentally tough

55:29

as a piece of steel. Explain

55:31

that to me.

55:33

End quote,

55:34

Mike Silver had a few thoughts about

55:36

that.

55:37

It's so true. So true. Teddy

55:40

hit it right and nail on the head with that.

55:43

The fighters were not only that is

55:46

again, this is an aspect that's

55:48

different than other supports. You could be

55:50

a legendary great basketball player.

55:53

Okay? And yet

55:57

not have what we would call in boxing

55:59

heart, you know.

56:01

it it's it's

56:03

a sport that requires great skill. But,

56:06

you know, what a boxer is trying to do

56:08

outletically, he's also getting hit in the face

56:10

while he's doing it. or he's getting

56:13

a terrific punch for the

56:15

for the solar plexus or for

56:17

the liver. He

56:19

he has to accept that type of

56:22

pain and and

56:24

keep going. And it takes that's

56:26

why I I've always admired Box it

56:29

takes a certain type

56:31

of individual to

56:34

to have that within them. and

56:36

to be successful in this sport. It is

56:38

the toughest sport in the world,

56:41

bar none. And

56:43

the fighters, if you you can go

56:45

into the technique, the greater technique,

56:47

the more experienced, but

56:49

as you mentioned the phrase greatest

56:52

generation, they also

56:54

had the mental toughness, and

56:56

that is a huge part of boxing. And

57:00

to go through the type of monsters,

57:03

they had to go through to become little not

57:06

not champion, just to become a contender.

57:08

the the depth of competition

57:11

was so severe that when you made

57:13

it, you know you had an accomplished

57:15

fighter there. You didn't have a guy coming out

57:17

of the amateur's fighting twelve fights and winning a

57:20

title. Oh, you gotta go

57:22

through forty, fifty, sixty, seventy

57:24

fights minimum. experience

57:27

all type of styles, and he had to

57:29

display the

57:32

heart or in bare knuckle days.

57:34

They used to call it bottom. So

57:36

I love that phrase. They had bottom. So

57:39

these are aspects that must

57:42

be taken into account when you're judging a

57:44

great fighter. And I think

57:47

it can give a modern day example. Mike

57:49

Tyson had all the physical assets

57:51

of any great fighter that ever lived.

57:54

I mean, he was just, you know,

57:56

just a solid

57:59

physical goal specimen that

58:01

was just really impressive. Tremendous

58:04

puncture could take a great punch, but

58:07

in the words of customado,

58:10

Teddy Atlas's mentor, he

58:12

really lacked the character. When the going

58:14

got tough, he

58:16

did a year. Okay? Looking

58:19

for a way out. So

58:21

having the great physical skills

58:24

which might get you buy, which will get

58:26

you buy in another sport, it

58:28

will keep you from attaining

58:31

greatness as a boxer.

58:33

I mean true greatness, not what they're calling greatness

58:35

today. There are very few very few great

58:37

boxes over the past twenty five, thirty

58:39

years, a few. However,

58:41

in the days when the competition

58:44

was much more severe,

58:46

you can those

58:49

fighters we're genuinely

58:51

great, and we're talking about we

58:53

know who they are.

58:55

I'm not sure that

58:57

we do, though, And this

58:59

gets back to my earlier question about if

59:01

we saw true boxing greatness, would

59:04

a modern audience even recognize

59:06

it? I mean, go to some of the boxing

59:09

discussion boards out there in the fighting message

59:13

boards, and you'll read a lot of people who will

59:15

think Mike Tyson would beat anybody

59:18

ever. Now I say this as a person

59:20

that really enjoyed Mike Tyson fights

59:22

and he was quite a breadth

59:25

of fresh air when he first showed up. We'd

59:27

had a lot of years of

59:30

fights without spectacular knockouts at

59:32

least at the highest levels of the heavyweight division,

59:35

and so he was a a very sort of

59:37

a different vibe. And and

59:39

like Ali, there was a lot

59:41

to the guy that made him compelling

59:43

either for good or bad reasons. You wanted to

59:45

root for him or against him and

59:47

his fights once again sort of

59:50

reawakened a wider interest

59:52

in boxing than just amongst the so

59:54

called boxing fans. But here's

59:57

the thing. Eddie

59:59

Futch, who was one of the last of the great

1:00:01

golden age trainers. I have a bunch of books

1:00:03

about boxing trainers. and

1:00:05

any such is like one of the last

1:00:08

of the people, you know, in in some

1:00:10

of the chapters of these books, right, sort of the

1:00:12

last of an era. and Futch is

1:00:14

one of these guys who boxed himself as

1:00:16

a lighter weight guy in the era

1:00:18

of Joe Lewis and he sparred with Joe

1:00:20

Lewis and they were friends, so he remembers

1:00:23

that era. But then he stayed

1:00:25

as this great trainer, you know,

1:00:27

for many, many years afterwards. He was training

1:00:29

heavyweight champions you know,

1:00:32

long after Mike Tyson was on the scene. He trained

1:00:34

Riddick Bow for example. And

1:00:37

Mark Crème, who was one of the great boxing

1:00:39

writers. when he was writing for

1:00:41

esquire magazine, Cornered Futch,

1:00:44

and asked him basically, was

1:00:47

Mike Tyson one of the best

1:00:49

five heavyweights of all time. So we're not

1:00:51

talking about, you know, any weight class.

1:00:53

We're just saying, you know, top five heavyweights. And

1:00:57

this, again, from a man who boxed them,

1:00:59

coached them all the way into

1:01:01

the modern era, knew Tyson's style

1:01:03

very well. And he said, quote,

1:01:07

No. Joe Lewis

1:01:09

had too much in either hand for Mike,

1:01:12

short, deadly combinations that

1:01:14

shake you to your shoes. with

1:01:16

Muhammad Ali, Mike wouldn't

1:01:18

hit him with a hand grenade. Jersey

1:01:21

Joe Walcott would have been too smart

1:01:23

for him. Sunny Liston was

1:01:25

too big and powerful and had a

1:01:27

jarring jab. Rocky

1:01:29

Marciano would be hit. That's

1:01:31

for sure. but Mike would see

1:01:33

violence in spades.

1:01:35

and quote

1:01:39

Well,

1:01:39

let me add that I don't think

1:01:41

he'd be able to handle George Forman

1:01:43

either.

1:01:46

So

1:01:47

I'm not sure we're

1:01:49

in a position in

1:01:51

this day and age because in for

1:01:53

the same reason that these boxers can't

1:01:55

fight like the boxers of the past because of the

1:01:58

lost knowledge, we can't judge

1:01:59

a fight like fight fans of the past

1:02:02

for the exact same reason. This

1:02:05

is obviously a

1:02:08

discussion like sports top

1:02:10

ten lists are that

1:02:12

is designed to provoke

1:02:15

conversation.

1:02:16

maybe even a friendly argument over

1:02:19

appetizers, but that's sort of what makes this

1:02:21

wonderful. As I said at the very beginning of this

1:02:23

show, this is the kind of subject sports

1:02:25

fans have enjoyed talking about forever.

1:02:29

You could get Russ Francis to preempt

1:02:32

the topic on his show. If you could get

1:02:34

him in grossed in

1:02:36

a conversation like this. The

1:02:39

one thing I will suggest though is it's

1:02:41

not a great conversation to have in tell

1:02:43

you've read Silver's book, and I asked him what

1:02:45

the reaction was amongst the fight

1:02:47

fan audience. And he says it was a generational

1:02:50

reaction. older fans

1:02:52

agreed with them, younger fans were

1:02:55

almost insulted that the

1:02:57

modern fighters that they liked are

1:02:59

being denigrated But

1:03:01

he said they also tended to be people who didn't

1:03:03

read the book that they came to that conclusion by

1:03:05

simply, you know, thinking bigger, stronger,

1:03:07

faster. Of course, they're better today. So I

1:03:09

would suggest reading the book, but then I'd love

1:03:12

to hear your thoughts on Twitter

1:03:14

and at hard core history. And

1:03:16

we can talk about this a little bit because to me,

1:03:19

This is one of the most fascinating sports

1:03:21

related topics out there. And I

1:03:23

think boxing is the only one where you could

1:03:25

really make the counter intuitive argument that

1:03:28

in this one case, maybe

1:03:30

it's the exception that proves the rule.

1:03:32

Right? Did I use that

1:03:34

phrase properly? I think I did. If

1:03:36

you like the arc of boxing

1:03:38

though, you might be interested in some of Mike

1:03:40

Silver's other books, and you can go to his website,

1:03:42

by the way, at mike silver boxing dot com if

1:03:44

you wanna see any of this, but he wrote the

1:03:47

night, the referee hit back memorable

1:03:49

moments from the world of boxing. He also

1:03:51

wrote stars in the ring, Jewish

1:03:54

champions in the Golden Age in boxing,

1:03:56

and there's another ethnic group amongst the many

1:03:58

many ethnic groups. You forget

1:04:01

hasn't has a permanent standing,

1:04:03

you know,

1:04:05

claim to a chunk of boxing history.

1:04:07

You think of all it's such an international sport,

1:04:09

isn't it? you go from guys like Manny Pacquiao

1:04:12

who is a hero in his home country in the Philippines,

1:04:14

a guy like Roberto Duran who is a hero in

1:04:17

you know, Panama to the eastern

1:04:19

block boxers who weren't really a part of the

1:04:21

pro years during the cold war

1:04:23

to boxers in Germany. I mean, which country

1:04:26

Italian boxers are are world

1:04:28

famous Irish boxers. I mean,

1:04:31

has there ever been a sport like that?

1:04:34

Let me add one more caveat that

1:04:36

might suggest that the best boxers

1:04:39

whoever lived were from a long

1:04:41

time ago and that's the color

1:04:43

barrier that existed for a while. And

1:04:45

silver brings this up too that affected

1:04:48

African American fighters because and

1:04:50

this is an interesting socio cultural

1:04:52

aspect of American sporting history also,

1:04:55

but boxing was one of the first areas

1:04:58

where African Americans were able

1:05:00

to dominate. I mean, you

1:05:02

know, you had the very early era, this

1:05:04

great white hope era where a

1:05:06

guy like Jack Johnson can become heavyweight

1:05:08

champion of the world around the time

1:05:11

of the first World War. And then

1:05:13

Joe Lewis can become, I believe, the

1:05:15

first big African American hero

1:05:18

to the whole country. These are huge

1:05:21

things. But some of the greatest boxers,

1:05:23

whoever lived, maybe the greatest boxers,

1:05:25

whoever lived according to many people,

1:05:27

never got a chance at the title. both

1:05:30

for racial reasons because there was

1:05:32

a time when some of these white boxers would

1:05:34

fight black boxers, but not just that, but because

1:05:37

they were so good, and in

1:05:39

boxing, you can ditch people

1:05:41

who are good. Look at a guy like Charlie

1:05:43

Burley

1:05:44

or Coleman Williams. These are guys

1:05:46

who some

1:05:49

of the great boxers ducted.

1:05:51

Black

1:05:51

boxers, two sugar ray Robinson. When

1:05:53

somebody suggested he fight, I think Charlie Burley

1:05:56

and not Coleman Williams. He said, I thought you were my

1:05:58

friend. Right?

1:05:59

Don't tell me to box

1:05:59

that guy.

1:06:01

So what ended up happening is these

1:06:03

boxers that nobody would fight would often

1:06:05

have to fight each other over

1:06:07

and over again. You know, you wanna fight. Well,

1:06:09

Charlie Burley is still available because no one will

1:06:11

fight him. So Williams and Burley would

1:06:13

fight a bunch of times, and you wanna talk

1:06:15

about steel sharpening. Steel?

1:06:18

It's

1:06:19

very possible you bring one of those

1:06:21

Champions, uncrowned champions,

1:06:24

never allowed to fight for the title champions. No

1:06:26

one wanted to piece of them champions back

1:06:29

from forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years

1:06:31

ago,

1:06:32

and no one would want a piece of them

1:06:34

today either.

1:06:40

If you think the show you just heard is worth a

1:06:42

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1:06:44

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1:06:46

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1:06:48

For hardcore history t shirts or other

1:06:50

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1:06:52

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