The Older, Smaller Heavyweight won the Title Fight

[DeeMoney]

So with the talk of Fury's place in history after his win over Wilder it got me thinking, how many times has a heavyweight title fight been won by the older & smaller fighter?

For sake of standardizing the research, I will say for the fighter to be older he has to be at least one year older than his opponent. For him to be smaller he has to be giving up both height & reach, also his opponent can't have just moved up in weight (ie Foster v Frazier).

I am sure there are some more instances of it happening in the past century, but the two that come to mind for me are Holyfield v Bowe II, and Ali v Foreman (though I don't know if Ali technically meets the definition as being smaller).

What are the other big time heayweight title fights where the smaller, older, guy won?

[The Old LefHook]

Good thread idea. Ali was smaller and older than Foreman.

[The Old LefHook]

Fitz was older & smaller than Corbett.

[Rusty Tromboni]

I dunno if you can consider Foreman bigger than Ali.


But definitely Holyfield and Fitz.

Ingo was older, but slightly heavier than Patterson. But he definitely carried more unnecessary weight into the ring.

[QueensburyRules]

Good thread idea. Ali was smaller and older than Foreman.

- -Foreman a dehydrated 5 lb heavier ain't an advantage, it was a handicap...Duh!

[QueensburyRules]

- -Roy 3 yrs older than natural hvy champ John Ruiz.

[Willie Pep 229]

Sharkey-Carnera
Braddock-Baer

I almost put Dempsey-Firpo on the list but checked and was surprised to discover that Dempsey was a year younger.

[Marchegiano]

Adding to Fitzsimmon's cap is the Peter Maher title fight. That fight was held as the world champion title fight during Corbett's retirement.

Fitzs is both older than Maher by six years and outweighed by Maher by fifteen pounds while giving up two and one half inches in reach.

Fitzs KO'd Maher with his solar plexus punch and won the HW crown on that day. Since then it's been sort of exponged from history and we see Corbett as champion until he got the solar plexus punch as well, but, fair is fair; Fitzs was both the older and smaller victor in two HW world title fights.

[just the facts]

So with the talk of Fury's place in history after his win over Wilder it got me thinking, how many times has a heavyweight title fight been won by the older & smaller fighter?

For sake of standardizing the research, I will say for the fighter to be older he has to be at least one year older than his opponent. For him to be smaller he has to be giving up both height & reach, also his opponent can't have just moved up in weight (ie Foster v Frazier).

I am sure there are some more instances of it happening in the past century, but the two that come to mind for me are Holyfield v Bowe II, and Ali v Foreman (though I don't know if Ali technically meets the definition as being smaller).

What are the other big time heayweight title fights where the smaller, older, guy won?

Uhh, Fury is way bigger than Wilder. Kinda craps on your thread.........

[ShoulderRoll]

Evander Holyfield won the second Rid**** Bowe fight.