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We know that HWs are bigger today than past ones, but is the same true for say, WWs and MWs?
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Bit of a no-brainer thread but...
Boxers across eras of any given weight are of course far more ripped on average today- consisting of much higher muscle to other ratio. This of course implies that if modern athletes of the exact same weight to past era ones were then allowed to "reinflate" to the same body composition as past era boxers- then they woould be much heftier of course.
This size difference is even more greatly increased by todays practice of weighing in as opposed to previous times and the afforded strategy now of starving and dehydrating prior to weigh in and then rapidly increasing again before the fight.
With both measures taken into account it's fair to say that a boxers today are atleast a weight range or 2 heavier than the equivalent in previous eras.
Heavyweight of course can be directly measured throough average weight- noting the dramatic incrrease in boxer size since 1980's.Comment
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BS. Show any trend suggesting such. because the Klitschkos and Lewis are big fighters? well what about Holyfield Moore and Tyson? there is no trend suggesting size is increasing dramatically for a heavyweight since 1980. There is no trend suggesting that smaller heavyweights are getting beat and replaced by bigger heavyweights. Lets see how Joshua does for example, and compare him to Haye. Lets see how Fury does ( I hope well) and see if he is better than Chisora... You are confusing weight addled fighters like Aereola who would probably be talented at 220-230 with a legitimate trend.Comment
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There were always behemoths in the heavyweight division. One difference is they were not as successful as behemoths have been for the last decade and a half.
Behemoths have been on a run at the top of the division. That could lead to premature conclusions.
The division is currently stacked with leviathans, which does nothing to dispel premature conclusions!
The greatest equalizer in boxing is speed combined with enough other positive attributes.Comment
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Billeau...
I don't know why you want me to post such obvious statistics. I can find, copy and paste the source later if you like, or even do the math yourself anyway to check the checker but anyway..
Muhammad Ali era.. Average weight 200lbs
LArry Holmes era ... Avg Wgt 215lbs
Mike Tyson era... Avg Wgt 220lbs
Lennox Lewis era... Avg Wgt 220lbs
Vitali era... Avg Wgt 225lbs
Wladimir era... Avg Wgt 230lbs
This trend also illustrates another point as an interesting aside- that the champs historically outweight the average opponents with only some exceptions like Mike Tyson as illustrated.
Of course further back than the Ali era there is no need to post any further indicators as it's obvious that the averge opponent continues to drop the further back in time and is bellow the cruiser limit today.Comment
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Actually there is an easy and obvious reason for it there mate...
Previous era behemoths were all complete oafs.
There is an obvious trend that the smaller heavyweights are always the more technically skilled and athletic on average and the bigger ones less so. This is because it is more difficult to aquire the same balance etc the larger the boxer gets and ALSO because larger boxers can rely more on their size than other attributes.
This applies for obligate HW's too but is even more pronounced in former sub-HW's who step up to HW during their career (like Haye, Holyfield etc) because they developed superior reflexes by fighting quicker more agile fighters with greater output and then stepped up too slower HW's. Important to note here however that they are still at a disadvantage as overall the benefits of being naturally larger outweigh these benefits on most occasions (notable exceptions being Haye and Holyfield.)
Coming back to today, the last 25 years has seen a great reduction in this skill gap between large and small, because of modern training modes, the big guys now have the skills too as well as being bigger.
Prior to the 90's really there were no boxers at the upper end of heavy who had really ANY skills.
Notable example are the big champs like Carnera, a circus carnie and George Foreman who could barely even box!
In fact there very success could even be argued was dependant on the much smaller opponents they fought.Comment
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Oh WELL DONE buddy!
You basically select one of the most ripped competitors of the 80's and compare them to a slightly chubby competitor of the 00's and simply declare that a representative example.
Let's now look at the absolute facts...
1. Athletes get better and better from generation to generation because of more evolved training modes, greater talent pool and so on on average and the most athletic heavies today are more athletic than ANY boxer of the 80's.
2. Your logic regarding chubbiness as an indicator of conditioning is false because you can be exceptionally conditioned whilst maintaining chub and you can be out of condition whilst looking ripped.
3. Your logic is even further contrived by the fact that heavyweight boxing follows a different law for what constitutes the optimal bodytype from limit weight boxers who definitely do need to be ripped. Investigation leads to the conclusion that the optimal bodyweight for a HW may actually be slightly chubby!! And this is exactly why HW is and always has been about half/half ripped to chubby boxers, because that's what the sieve of competition shows us.
4. There are just as many fat boxers in any era. The only difference now is that they are heavier in both muscle and fat!
And to illustrate using your logic...
David Haye
Tony Tubbs (on right)
Case closed!Comment
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