What were differences between boxing in the 1920s and boxing now?

Answer 1

Boxing has evolved now, before boxing was a big thing, you could only use your hands, weight and power. Now it has had alot of interest lost, beucase of ufc. UFC is the new generation of boxing, it is mixed Martial Arts, you can box, kick box, karate, any fighting style there is you can use it. except for wepon fighting.

Answer 2

This is a topic that could be covered in a very large book, especially if we were to delve into the culture of the time, the safety (or lack thereof) and the money differences ... But let me summarize as best as I can, purely from a strategic position...

Boxing in the 1920s made an enormous leap forward from a technical standpoint. Two fighters in particular, Benny Leonard and Jack Dempsey, turned the game on its ear. If you were to watch film of fights from 1900-1920, you would see that the game involved far more flat-footed grappling, little in the way of combination punching and a very slow pace. Leonard was the first big innovator of defensive strategy and footwork. He was really the first guy to conclude that weight distribution back and forth between the feet could be used for something other than power punching... He was the godfather of backfoot strategy and using your body movement to force a move from an opponent in order to produce an opportunity for a counterpunch. Leonard understood, as none before him had really, that it is much more difficult for a man to hit him cleanly and effectively when he was A) presenting to him with his body angled so that the rear shoulder is significantly behind the lead and B) when the target moves laterally and diagonally ... not only did this afford him an immense defensive advantage, the tactics also introduced an incredible array of offensive options which were totally unavailable when flat footed and nearly squared up with an opponent... A jab became not merely a probing tool, but a key weapon in and of itself... fired unpredictably as one punch, or doubled or tripled, while moving seamlessly, it retained plenty of snap but also allowed the boxer to remain in a strong defensive position... The jab, when used this way, also opened the door for a greater variety of combinations, especially the classic 1-2 - jabbing while on the front foot and then seamlessly transferring weight to the turning backfoot to bring home the right hand with great power and speed... hooking off of that right hand also became a natural third step... Leonard also made great use of the straight right as a countepunch... use movement and a head feint to elicit a response from the opponent and then punch the opening with a straight right hand... It completely changed the game and by as early as 1930 you could see a massive upgrade in the skills of boxers at all levels.

Dempsey, for his part, introduced the first real "pressure" tactics, eschewing the old guard of upright, slow paced punch and parry, Dempsey did something utterly alien at the time: he fought out of a crouch and marched forward, slipping punches and attacking, throwing in combination, including (for the time) an unusually voluminous amount of bodypunches... The pace he forced and the aggressive style in which he forced it were completely revolutionary... Again, by as early as 10 years form the time he really made a big splash, you could see dozens of fighters adopting this tactic.

Like anything else, as years wore on, various fighters and trainers refined these tactics, adding new wrinkles so that by the 1940s (arguably the deepest and most difficult/competitive era in the history of the sport) there were literally 100s of boxers around who made Leonard and Dempsey look somewhat primitive by comparison... The quality of the game didn't change all that much from 1945-1995... There were great technicians in every decade... But in that last 15 years, the declining popularity of the sport and a large weakening of the talent pool has caused a lot of regression... There are still a handful of truly skilled fighters (Floyd Mayweather, Juan Manuel Marquez, etc.) but they appear to be a dying breed... Things that were basic in say, 1978, are advanced and foreign to many of today's young fighters who rely far more on fitness and speed than skill... Are they better than the guys of the 20s? Yeah, I'd say so... The difference physically is enough to make that the case... but I think a great many of today's top ten ranked fighters in each weight class would be also-rans at any time between 1940 and 1999... Though it should be said that gauging the heavyweight division this way is far more difficult because size is such a huge factor... it's hard to imagine 190 pound Rocky Marciano being able to do anything against 250 pound Vitali Klitschko, for example.

Answer 3

Boxing rules change over time by how the community or necessarily the manger changed it.... Boxing back then u could not hit someone when shaking hands today the can i am just saying back then it had more rules then today

Answer 4

Boxing is changed from the old bareknuckles to glove from tights to shorts it has lots of changes

Answer 5

you punch eachother untill you fall to the floor