Post-Boxing Day post about boxing

YARGB has a post up about the old school bare-knuckle boxers and how their exaggerated stance wasn't stupid.  To the contrary:

To modern eyes the stance of the old-time bare-knuckle brawlers looks ridiculous, but it actually served a purpose. Due to the risk of hurting their hands by hitting the bones of the skull, head punches were less common. Although they would hit the chin and face, most of the punches were thrown at the body. That meant the boxers lowered their defense to guard against body shots.

This is a nifty post that shows that (a) our ancestors were actually pretty smart and adaptable and (b) when we think they were being dumb, it's very likely that we're the ones being dumb because we don't know what they knew.

YARGB's post jumped out at me because of a nifty book that The Queen Of The World got me for Christmas: Mike Silver's The Arc Of Boxing: The Rise and Decline of the Sweet Science.  I ran across this on Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast when he interviewed Silver.  The podcast starts from the premise that Boxing is the only modern sport where the athletes of past ages are better than modern athletes.

This struck a chord with me.  Way back in the day, we used to enjoy Friday Night Fights on network TV.  This was back in the Muhammad Ali era and I used to really look forward to the show.  I was never what you'd call a devotee of the Sweet Science, but there's no question that the sport has degenerated into what Silver calls a "Human Demolition Derby".

Silver's book is convincing.  The lack of skill among today's boxers is glaring, even to a novice viewer like me.  The footwork is gone, the weave in is gone, the feint is gone.  Looking at some of Ali's matches on Youtube shows what we've lost.  "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee" has turned into "take a punch to give a punch".  In Silver's view, the craftsmanship is gone.

I highly recommend anyone remotely interested in the subject to listen to Carlin's interview with Silver.  In this day of champions with 30 or 40 professional bouts, I hadn't known about Harry Greb, "The Pittsburgh Windmill" who fought 328 professional bouts.  Of course Greb had more skill than today's boxers, because he had ten times the experience.

Boxing was always a tough sport, but it wasn't as dangerous as it is today.  Fighters were much better matched than today; back then, being a "contender" meant so much that it became the centerpiece of the story in the film On The Waterfront.  There was much more of a focus on body shots (rather than head shots).  Defensive skills were sharp because a fighter had to fight often to pay the rent and if he got too beat up he couldn't fight.

Silver's book is an ode to a lost world - in my mind a much more interesting world than today's.  But the world is gone - Carlin asks Silver if today's boxing fans would like watching old bouts from the great fighters in the past.  Silver replies that they wouldn't, because they wouldn't understand anything that they saw.  It was a lot more interesting to watch back in the '70s, before it was nothing but knockouts and ear biting.

The podcast, the book, and YARGB's post are highly recommended.