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This may well be the silliest question ever posted on Quora, even beating the ones about Mike Tyson fighting an octopus or something.The questioner obviously knows nothing about boxing, or he would know that heavyweight boxing is in the worst state it ever has been, ever. Fighters are not better, they are nowhere near as good as the Great Boxers of yesterday.Boxing is devolving, not evolving!How far would Fury, Joshua and Wilder get running through the champs of 1920–2000? They wouldn’t get by the lower ranked contenders in those years, let alone the champions. The Buddy Baer’s, Earnie Shavers, Harry Wills, and Ron Lyle’s would stomp a mudhole in the the three modern stooges.CREDIT BALTIMORE SUNBoxing is not evolving as the question foolishly asks, it is devolving as the athletes fighting, especially at heavyweight, get worse and worse.Why is boxing in such pitiful shape? Why is it worse now, especially in the big men, than any other time in its existence?the best no longer fight the best, and there are very few good or even fair fighters at all;the three modern stooges, Curly, Moe and Larry, ie: Fury, Wilder and AJ, have the worst resumes of any “champion” in history, they have fought a bunch of nobodies;big men do not make better boxers unless they are better athletes, and these are not;boxing is the most difficult sport to master of them all, and the great teachers, the great trainers, are all gone;boxing is dangerous, the most dangerous sport of all, and it keeps the better athletes away; the best athletes go to other sports with pension plans and health care and less chance of brain damage;Because of racism, boxing used to be one of the few avenues for Black men to excel, today there are many other roads which don’t involve getting hit in the head;all three of the modern greats have significant flaws that would not have allowed any of them - including Fury - to compete at the highest level at any other time in boxing history;there are now 306 titles instead of 8, and no one knows in the public who the best is;promoters won’t allow the better fighters to fight each other, instead they all search for someone’s Granny to pass off as Joshua’s next challenger;There is not one single era, from the 1920’s to 2020 where the best three top fighters were not better than today’s modern stooges.Boxing is devolving, not evolving, and we will examine each reason individually, starting with our stooges unwillingness to fight anyone with a pulse.But first, the very argument that athletes are all necessarily better fails on examination.Boxing has been around for over a century. It is unquestionable that the majority (not all) of the greatest boxers came from the 1920s to the 1990s, and we will analyze why that is so. To claim that today’s boxers are better simply by using terrible comparisons such as swimming and sprinting times shows how little those doing it know about boxing. They assume that because swimmers and sprinters have been slowly improving, the same must be true for boxers. Comparing a one-dimensional sport like sprinting or swimming to a multi-faceted sport like boxing is insane. Boxing is the most difficult sport to master, and the others are not. Boxing requires a very high degree of mental acuity, the others do not.Not to mention the rules themselves have changes in sprinting. Everyone always brings up Jesse Owens against Usain Bolt. But they forget that Bolt ran on specially designed synthetic tracks as well as having a starting block to shove himself off of. Owens was not given a head start from starting blocks like Bolt, and he ran on uneven old tracks made from the ashes of burnt cinders. And Jesse wore heavy leather shoes instead of specialized racing shoes. Hand timers were used instead of electronic timing.All these things are forgotten. No one knows whether Jesse Owens might have been able to add that .62 seconds if he was in modern shoes, on a modern track, out of racing blocks!Boxing is the only sport which remains relatively the same., and which requires years upon end of training with great teachers to master. And those great teachers are gone.Well, on to the other reasons boxing is going down, not up.Unlike days gone by, when the best fought the best, the Three Modern Stooges, Fury, Deontay and AJ, haven’t fought anyone who can fight.Let us look at the numbers and compare these three fighters records:Anthony Mason, boxing writer, said "I think the only way to fairly rank a boxer's place in history is by comparing their résumés. And that does not mean just wins and losses - it is too easy today to fight only has beens or never will be's, and run up the record.”Joe Louis had a “bum of the month” club - but the Three Stooges have a bum for a career clubJoe’s idea of a bum was #3 all time great light heavyweight Billy Conn, fighting as a heavyweight, or #18 of all time heavyweight Bob Pastor, or #49 (and ex champ) Primo Carnera, and so on. All of his opponents in that club were ranked in the top 250 of all time.The three modern stooges fight nothing but REAL bums! Fury has fought 27 of 30 fighters not in the top 500! Joshua has 18 of his 23 opponents were not in the top 500 and Wilder of his 44 opponents, 41 of them are not in the top 500! He won one and tied one in the top 500, the rest of his opponents are Tijuana cab drivers.Comparing their records against top 100 all time competition:Wilder’s is the worst, he has met one top 100 fighter, and lost to him.Fury has met two top 100 fighters, and gotten 2 wins and a draw, against a 38 year old, and a guy who can’t box.Joshua is right there with Fury. He met two top 100 fighters, and managed to beat a 40 year old man and a 38 year old man, both of whom could box, but they were so far over the hill they creaked.Highest ranked opponent each defeated who wasn’t old and could boxWilder’s highest ranked opponent who he beat is 879 year old Luis Ortiz, who is ranked #208. His highest ranked opponent under 40 is that powerhouse (ha ha) Siarhei Liakhovich who is ranked #348.Fury’s highest ranked opponent who wasn’t old or could box, is #226 Derek Chisora, who he fought twice, the first time going the distance with, and in the rematch managing to stop him in the 10th round.Joshua managed to get beat up and knocked out by #249 Fat Andy Ruiz, and his highest ranked opponent he beat who wasn’t eligible for retirement was #190 Dillian Whyte. Joshua also managed to go the distance with #249 Fatter Andy in their rematch, while he ran for his life, and he managed to go the distance with #246 Joseph Parker.The three stooges have the worst competition in heavyweight history for “champions”Fury has managed to fight, out of his 30 opponents, 27 cab drivers who are not in the top 500.Joshua did a little better, only 18 of his 23 opponents were not in the top 500 and probably washing dishes when not getting fighting the British Statue.Wilder takes the prize, of his 44 opponents, 42 of them are not in the top 500! He won one and tied one in the top 500, the rest of his opponents are Tijuana cab drivers.Moments that certainly warm Eddie Hearn’s (let us give my Grandma a shot at the title) heartTyson Fury defending his “lineal” title against that powerhouse #1,467 Tom Schwartz.Both Joshua and Wilder gave the slightly better #1,105 Eric Molina a title shot.All three stooges have the unique distinction of being the only champions in history to give a title fight to someone outside the top 1,100 heavyweights.A special shout out to Joshua for getting beaten up and knocked out by the fattest champion in history, #249 Fat Andy Ruiz, as he waddled around slapping Joshua. Joshua got 80 million dollars for a rematch which highlighted his track skills as he ran in circles around Shamu the whale.Comparing their records to such greats as Ali and Joe Louis:Ali fought 17 top 100 fighters, and 22 top 150 fighters, winning 21 of 22.Joe Louis fought 15 top 100 fighters, and 16 top 150 fighters, winning 14 of 16.Wilder has fought one top 100 fighter, and lost.Joshua has fought two top 100 fighters, and won, though they were 40 and 38.Fury has fought two top 100 fighters, one was old, one could not box.All together the three Stooges of modern boxing have fought 5 top 100 opponents, winning a grand total of 4, all together, and get special recognition for offering title defenses to fighters outside the top 1,000.Every top fighter the Stooges faced was old enough for AARP.Ali and Louis by themselves EACH beat 4 times the top 100 fighters as the stooges, and never gave a title defense to anyone nearly as bad as Molina or Schwartz.Why is boxing so pitiful and pathetic next to sixty years ago?Fanboys think the size of today’s big guys is everything, and it is not - it never replaces skill, power or speed. The great trainers are all gone, the best athletes don’t box, and the lower contenders in the Golden Age could be champion today.Bigger is not betterThere are writers on here, such as “Never was,” who know nothing of boxing, and who confuse size with skill.Boxing writer and historian, Frank Thomas, explains the difference between size and skill:"In the minds of some, size trumps all. Ergo, [Fury, Wilder or Joshua] should defeat any other heavyweight who is not of similar stature. This gravely misunderstands the role of size in boxing, as amply demonstrated by yesteryear’s Primo Carnera, the Golden Age’s own Ernie Terrell, or modern fighters such as Nikolai Valuev and Lance Whitaker. In addition to height, it also misreads what “size” is.Many modern heavyweights are the same height as their 1970s counterparts, but pack twenty pounds or more of extra mass. Yet does that mass make them a better fighter? If it was earned by lifting weights, [or PED's] as is all too often the case, then the answer is no.Bulky muscles look impressive, but they do not help a fighter hit harder. Instead, they slow a fighter down and serve as useless bulk which must be hauled around the ring all night. Anyone who has trained using old school boxing methods is familiar with just how difficult it is to build good boxing muscle through weight lifting."Because fighters today are bigger, does not mean they are better. A physique like AJ's is useful if he is posing on a stage for Mr. Universe, and not a bit of help in the ring while a fat Mexican is pounding his huge posterior. His size helps him against boxers without the skill to actually box him.Ditto for Wilder - people ooh and ah about his being 6′7″ and knocking out 32 complete bums, and 5 journeyman - but he did not beat the only good fighter he faced.There are fewer great athletes going into boxing, especially fewer big menEvery fighter and trainer alive agrees that the numbers of fighters, the far fewer great athletes boxing, especially in the higher weights, is proof that the best athletes, instead of picking boxing, as they did in Ali’s day, now pick other sports.Emmanuel Steward said of today’s bigger fighters, "they are nowhere near as skilled as the old fighters. All the good big men are in the NFL or NBA!" He went on to say that the money is so good in the NBA and NFL, which have medical coverage and a good pension plan to boot, that fighters like Foreman and Liston, would today be in other sports.Angelo Dundee said before he died, "the great heavyweights are gone. Lennox Lewis was the last great heavyweight you will see in your lifetime. These guys coming up just can't box!" Dundee reinforced what Manny Steward said, that “today’s big men are simply not as good athletes as their Golden Age predecessors.”There are fewer fighters today compared to even 50 years agoThere are fewer fighters, fewer trainers, with less expertise fighting fewer fights, and not just in the US, but all over the world the totals are down.Fighters today fight far fewer rounds, box less in the gym, and simply do not learn the fundamentals of the game.By every metric that matters, the sport is far less healthy than it was 40-50 years ago. Those metrics include key indicators like the number of licensed fighters and the number of promoted events. Both are significantly lower than they were 50 years ago. In fact, both are significantly lower than they were in the 1930′s.Even counting the relatively greater popularity of the sport in England and Eastern Europe, there are still less fighters total, in the world, licensed to fight than there were in 1970, almost 50 years ago!There are less licensed trainers than there were 50 years ago!Fighters today fight far fewer fights, thus boxing infinitely fewer rounds, box less in the gym, and simply do not learn the fundamentals of the game, because practice makes perfect. Greater money for a single fight means fighters do not fight as much, and thus do not learn as much.There are also far fewer boxing events held. In addition, there are fewer fight clubs, licensed fighters, and licensed trainers today that in 1970, and in the US, fewer than even in 1930. Fewer boxers, fewer trainers, fewer events to box in, less training, less sparring, worse athletes - no wonder modern heavyweights especially are simply pitiful next to heavyweights from the past.This era of fighters, especially heavyweights, is all time weak, skill wiseThe best summary of how far boxing was fallen in quality is The Arc of Boxing: The Rise and Decline of the Sweet Science byMike Silver. In this riveting book, Mike Silver point by point by the numbers shows the ongoing deterioration of boxers' skills, their endurance, the decline in the number of fights and the psychological readiness of championship-caliber boxers. The strengths and weaknesses of today's superstars are analyzed empirically and compared to those of such past greats as Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Liston, Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jack Dempsey and Jake LaMotta - and the modern fighters simply do not stand up in the comparison.Fighters today fight far fewer rounds, box less in the gym, and simply do not learn the fundamentals of the game.There are fewer trainers, with less expertise fighting fewer fights.The numbers do not lie. Tyson Fury and Luis Ortiz are the only heavyweights in the top ten who actually can box! And Fury is coming off a near 4 year drink and drug binge, and Ortiz is at least 40! Oleksandr Usyk can actually box, but he is unproven as a heavyweight at this time.The Great Trainers are a distant memoryTraining hasn’t improved in any way. If anything there are less qualified trainers than ever before. Joe Frazier commented in KO Magazine, March 1999, ‘These guys aren’t trained by real champions, by great ex-fighters.”And guess what? Much of boxing training, most of it, has not changed a bit since the days of the Great Jack Blackburn. The fighter hits the heavy and light bags, they spar, they are taught by their trainer, they do roadwork. Some things are timeless.Eddie Futch, Ray Arcel, and Manny Steward were the last Masters. There is no trainer today even remotely in their class. And they would tell you, Steward, Futch, Arcel, they held guys like Blackburn and Goldman in awe!Charlie Goldman was called by Rocky an “artist.” (Rocky Marciano by Everett Skehan) Rock said Charlie sculpted him into the world heavyweight champion!The best trainers in history were fighters who knew all the secrets of the game. Rocky Marciano's trainer, Charley Goldman, claimed to have had over 300 pro fights. Jack Blackburn, Joe Louis’ trainer, was one of the great fighters of the turn of the century and had over 160 pro fights. He fought the likes of Joe Gans, Sam Langford, and Harry Greb. They learned to fight by fighting, and then by working with other great trainers.That level of experience is completely gone from the sport today.Ray Arcel, Hall of Fame Trainer, who learned himself from some of the greats, like Benny Leonard and Whitey Bimstein, noted right before his death, "Boxing is not really boxing today. It’s theater. Some kids might look good. But they don’t learn their trade. If you take a piece of gold out of the ground, you know its gold. But you have to clean it. You have to polish it. But there aren’t too many guys capable (today) of polishing a fighter.”And that is what the Never was a coach misses, that fundamentals and training are missing, and in the heavyweights, athletic ability. The sport used to get the best athletes - now it gets those who can't play football or basketball...Boxing is by far the most difficult sport to master - and the great teachers are goneBoxing very clearly is different from other sports, and by far the toughest sport to master.That's the sport that demands the most from the athletes who compete in it, according to a panel of sports scientists created by ESPN, who wanted to be able to use modern science to literally measure and determine what sport was the most difficult to learn and master - and it was boxing by a mile.Degree of Difficulty panelIt's tougher than football, harder than baseball, harder than basketball, tougher than MMA, gymnastics, hockey or soccer or cycling or skiing or fishing or billiards or any other of the 60 sports which ESPN rated.The 10 categories measured in comparing sports for toughness and difficulty to master were endurance, strength, power, speed, agility, flexibility, nerve, durability, hand-eye coordination, and analytic aptitude.MMA was 6th, Gymnastics was 8th.Boxing was first.Sport Skills Difficulty RankingsSo without great trainers - and they are all gone - boxing cannot be mastered as well.Science based training today is far from better - boxing is an art, not a scienceBoxing is the most dangerous sport of the conventional sports - more people are killed, and 100% of participants suffer brain damage, with 17–20% suffering some form of long term disabilityRanking Sports from Least to Most Dangerous: Includes NFL, NBA, NHL and SoccerIt is generally believed that "approximately 500 boxers have died in the ring or as a result of boxing since the Marquess of Queensberry Rules were introduced in 1884. 22 boxers died in 1953 alone. 37 have died since 1989, compared to 21 for rodeo events, including bull riding.And this is despite rule changes in boxing, reducing rounds from 15 to 12 for championship events, and from 12 to 10 for regular bouts, requirements that doctor's be ringside and an ambulance be on standby, and more!The deadliness of the sport is one reason the better athletes head off to other sports, which, as Manny Steward wryly noted, have pensions and health care!Multiple sanctioning bodies leave fans unsure who is champion of whatIt used to be there were eight undisputed champions. Now there are 17 weight classes, and five title belts, plus the Ring Championships, for a total of 102 champions for the 17 weight classes! Then they have super, interim, and regular champions, so they have, potentially, 306 champions! That is 306 compared to 8 in the days of Sugar Ray Robinson.Each of the five organizations, the WBC, WBA, WBO, IBF, and the IBO, charge sanctioning fees for their title fights. They also charge for their elimination fights, and for everything else they can manage to screw a penny out of fighters for. They are all allied in one form or another with certain promotors, and certain Television viewing options, et al. None of them work well with the others, and none of the viewing platforms do either. The horde of sanctioning organizations allows the horde of viewing platforms and promotors to con the public and bilk everyone out of more money.Until 1965 there was basically one champion - the WBA/WBC split over Ali’s rematch with Liston was a forerunner of multiple champions, and much confusion.Now we have 306 champions instead of 8. No wonder the public is sick of it all.Promoters not letting fighters fight the best competitionEver since Floyd Mayweather introduced the value of “0” as in no defeats, no promoter wants to let a money fighter fight anyone who might endanger their value. Case in point: Eddie Hearn and Anthony Joshua. They could have had a Fury or Wilder fight years ago, but Hearn deliberately low-balled both.Nor is that the only case. Al Haymon won’t let Errol Spence fight Terrance Crawford, who is promoted by Bob Arum.People have asked "Did Pacquiao ever offer to fight Kell Brook? … Errol Spence? … Terence Crawford? … even Shawn Porter? " Yes, he wanted to fight all of them! Why didn't he fight them? Because never was, up until last year, he fought for Bob Arum, and all of them except for Brock fight for the same rival promoter who scuttled a Spence-Crawford fight, Al Haymon.Kell Brook worked for Eddie Hearn, who also has a poor relationship with Arum, and any Pacquiao vs. Brook fight would have been held in England, which neither Arum nor Pacquiao was keen on. Now Manny works for Al Haymon, who also has a poor relationship with Eddie Hearn - and that fight won't get made not because Manny does not want it (Kell Brook trying to starve himself back to welterweight would be so weak Manny would eat him alive) but because Haymon won't work with Hearn.it used to be that the best fought the best, but now, it is simply not the case, most of the time.Bob Arum recently announced this week that Terrence Crawford may fight an MMA bout and then a boxing match with a UFC star because they cannot get any of Al Haymon’s welterweight stable into the ring.That says it all. The best welterweight boxer in the world has to consider fighting an MMA star because rival promoters keep the other good welterweights from boxing him.Racism was one ugly reason so many great Black fighters arose back in the dayJon Jones mentions this all the time - and he is spot on.Ken Burns, the great filmmaker who produced “Unforgivable Blackness” about Jack Johnson, has noted that young Black men flocked to boxing in the 20th century as a way to earn a living. He also noted with the real end of segregation in the 1960’s, there appears to be far fewer young African-American men boxing because there are other, better, ways to make a living, in other sports, and in general.WK Stratton wrote in Floyd Patterson how boxing was one of the few avenues to a young Black man in the 1940’s and 1950’s to escape poverty.Although things are not completely rosy today, and there are other avenues to get out, and other sports, the NFL and NBA, which pay more on average, and are less dangeorus.The highest ranked fighters today are far inferior to those of yesterday:Let us compare the top three of every era”The three Modern stooges, Fury, Wilder and Joshua, and Wilder are ranked:#24 Fury#40 Wilder#44 JoshuaThe three best of the Roaring Twenties to the Depression Era:#7 Gene Tunney#23 Max Schmeling#29 Jack DempseyThe Depression Era:#1 Joe Louis#10 Jimmy Bivens#17 Joe WalcottPost WW2 to the 1960’s#1 Ezzard Charles (ranked as light heavy but heavyweight champion w/8 defenses)#3 Rocky Marciano#16 Ingemar JohannsonThe Golden Age#2 Ali#4 Sonny Liston#13 Joe FrazierThe Holmes Era#7 Mike Spinks (ranked as light heavy but heavyweight champion w/2 defenses)#14 Larry Holmes#19 George ForemanThe Tyson-Holyfield-Lewis Era#5 Lennox Lewis#8 Riddick Bowe#9 Mike TysonThe Klitschkos#6 Wlad Klitschko#12 Vitali Klitschko#20 Nikolay ValuevAll of the other eras every single great outranks today’s so called champions.Try this: Joe Louis and Ali by themselves each fought and defeated 4 times the number of top 100 heavyweights that the Stooges did altogether.There is simply not the depth of heavyweight contenders that there were in any other time in modern boxing history, BUT, none of the paper champions are very eager to fight what contenders there are. After all, if you are a Fury, why fight a #190 Dillian Whyte when you can fight a #1,467 Tom Schwartz?If you are Wilder, why fight #226 Derek Chisora when you can fight #1,180 Artur Szpilka?If you are a Joshua, why fight anyone with a pulse when you can go outside the ranked contenders and fight an non-ranked #249 Fat Andy Ruiz, who lost to the only ranked fighter he ever faced? (Oops, that didn’t work out well!)Wilder’s competition is the worst, he has met one top 100 fighter, and lost to him.Fury has met two top 100 fighters, and gotten 2 wins and a draw, against a 38 year old, and a guy who can’t box.Joshua is right there with Fury. He met two top 100 fighters, and managed to beat a 40 year old man and a 38 year old man, both of whom could box, but they were so far over the hill they creaked. A fat guy weighing 843 pounds beat Joshua like a red headed stepchild, and he was ranked #249.NO GREAT FIGHTER IN ANY OTHER ERA LOST TO A FAT MAN RANKED #249.Finally, all three of the modern stooges have significant weaknesses that prevent their being great fighters in the historical context:Fury simply is not very strong or fast for his size, and survives and thrives on using his size to substitute for strength and power, and using his brain to mask his athletic deficiencies; in another era, against a Tyson, a Liston, an Ali, he would go down quickly and he knows it;Joshua looks like a champion, but he is not. He has a chin of the finest porcelain, and he has no ring IQ, forgetting his fight plans and everything else when he is hit;Wilder cannot box. His own trainer says an 11 year old boxes better and he is right.None of these guys is great.CONCLUSION: Boxing is devolving, not evolvingEmmanuel Steward said of today’s bigger fighters, "they are nowhere near as skilled as the old fighters. All the good big men are in the NFL or NBA!" He went on to say that the money is so good in the NBA and NFL, which have medical coverage and a good pension plan to boot, that fighters like Foreman and Liston, would today be in other sports.Angelo Dundee said before he died, "the great heavyweights are gone. Lennox Lewis was the last great heavyweight you will see in your lifetime. These guys coming up just can't box!" Dundee reinforced what Manny Steward said, that “today’s big men are simply not as good athletes as their Golden Age predecessors.”Boxing evolving to make better fighters my hindparts. One Jack Blackburn would be worth every trainer alive today all put together…Sonny Liston could whip Curly, Moe and Larry, err, Fury, Wilder and Joshua, all together on the same night, and then go dancing all night.CREDIT TO:Boxrec for height, reach, records, statistics, and rankingsBoxing: A Concise History of the Sweet Science by Gerald R GemsCorner Men: Great Boxing Trainers by Ronald K. FriedCox’s Corner and Monte CoxDegree of Difficulty panelFloyd Patterson by WK StrattonJoe Louis by Joe LouisRanking Sports from Least to Most Dangerous: Includes NFL, NBA, NHL and SoccerRocky Marciano by Everett SkehanSport Skills Difficulty RankingsThe Arc of Boxing: The Rise and Decline of the Sweet Science byMike SilverThe Sweet Science by A. J. LieblingThe Ultimate Encyclopedia of Boxing by Harry Mullan