Liston in his prime before Patterson bouts.
Marciano may have been the best conditioned of all.
A young Cassius Clay/Ali before his exile
Johnson and Dempsey and of course Joe Louis would do 20 miles of roadwork, to gain stamina. So to add whatever you might feel is better than that, I can't say. These guys were true fighters and gained their top notch conditioning not from machines, but fighting and working hard.
These guys would as Charlie Goldman the famed NYC trainer once said would ruin these guys today.
Dominate the heavyweight division?
They would take it down.
Today, the heavyweight division doesn't need anything.
The only real opponents you need to train for are the Klitschkos and everyone mentioned on that list could beat the Klitschkos without extreme conditioning. Easy light work for the all time great Heavyweights.
Those guys were probably more commited to staying in shape than the boxers of today. As far as how they'd do in the Heavyweight devision? Ernie Shavers would be world champ today.
yes...better...all this conditioning etc makes you a cinderella....the old fighters were good because they lived hard...dempsey trained by occasionally punching through doors...other fighters were from poor backgrounds...conditioning etc does help but notice that when fighters want to go training camp its about relative seclusion and mostly running, sparing and weights...i.e. old school....with the heavyweight division as it is today all these fighters would win anyway....the only very recent fighters who could beat these guys or mix it with them are tyson, lewis and holyfield.
Oh yeah, all these guys would become "machines".
Jack Johnson
Jack Dempsey
Joe Louis
Rocky Marciano
Sonny Liston
Muhammad Ali
Would they be able to dominate the Heavyweight division like they did in their day? Would they do better or worse?
