What is it about the super-tall heavyweights since the 2000's?

[DreamFighter]

Or another with so many mandatory challengers who are fat and/or old.

this the word, though I dont blame the Klitschkos, they were smartly managed, and it wasnt on them to be more honest. Massive new EE market, why not flog it.

[Toffee]

evolution.

humans that tall isnt new.

but look at what kevin durant can do at his height. balance, skill and speed at a height previously thought impossible.

so whats new is giants with the coordination of non giants. we see it in the nba now and we see it in boxing too.

Well it's obviously not evolution. Humans haven't changed in that time.

I do have a theory that our understanding of how to select junior athletes has changed. It used to just be the best kids that were selected, nowadays there's more focus on potential. You just know the basketball system isn't focusing too much on kids whose parents are 5 foot nothing.

Logically that means the big boys are being pushed into sports whereas in my day in England the exceptionally big kids were just pushed out of sports (basically, they typically became 'nerds'), unless you were in a rugby town/school.

[Marchegiano]

Evolution?

Surely he means of sport not man.


To that end the idea that certain athletes should have specific builds seems to have come and gone in boxing like soft gloves. The ancients had ideal body types. Today we have ideal body types in sports. Inbetween, not so much.

So from like 686BC-ish to 300AD-ish you see specific body types being desired for specific sports or positions in those sports. Christianity happens, boxing comes back around the 1720s but we don't really see much body type desire in sports until about the 1960s I reckon.

These ideals were very different. For one, Greek fought naked and didn't think of it as ****sexual in anyway to compliment another man on his donger. Big social difference, but, what's even more important is they liked little pee-pees and having a great big walloper was not something to be proud of. So comparing the two era when a desire for body type existed is really difficult. I can't say there's an evolution between the periods. They're distinct and separate.

The one thing that is always true about boxing no matter what period, culture, or even how well the history is kept is boxers are what their audience responds to. You see massive Hws today because the audience responds to massive HWs now.

People often mistake the 130lb Roman for a easy win for the 265lb modern HW, but, you are forcing an ancient roman into modern rules...with a ring, time limits, and no fear of any gods. Place your 265lb modern HW in Rome and it's no wonder they praised smaller men. There is plenty of record for an averaged sized man to fight from sun up until sun down. That sort of activity has never been recorded out of anyone over 6 foot and 250lbs. The biggest killer in boxing history was exhaustion, big men for most of history died if they tried to keep up with the average sized man. That's what made the average size average, it is the survivor.

So evolution of sport? Yes I suppose that's fair to say, from about 1960s to now, but what's really gone on is an evolution of society and values.

We didn't care that much about human life for most of human history. Consequently it isn't as if Figg didn't know he might get stabbed to death. He knew, that was part of the sell. The audience came because he might get stabbed to death. Overtime getting stabbed to death became less of a spectator sport. At no point did these people delude themselves into believing they gave a damn about human life. When they did sports change. It's really that simple.

Evolution in man would be big news. Evolution in sport is just a reflection of evolution in society.

[SHO_RULEZ]

Re

These heavyweights from Russia and Europe started coming in. These guys were going 6-5 and up. One guy was 7 plus.

Suddenly, if you were gonna compete in this division, you better have some height, to go along with the weight.