Impact of weight at Heavyweight

[azzman]

Hello Gentlemen. Relatively new to posting on here but have been logging in for a while as much as possible to read the great posts and replies. I'm impressed with the knowledge of people on here so perhaps you can help improve my own knowledge as well.

My question is this, there is around 4 to 7lb difference between weight divisions but as soon as you get to heavyweight there is no limit. It is often said that a step up in division or an opponent being over weight by a couple of pounds could be dangerous for a fighter but at heavyweight there could be over a stone difference in weight but no one ever mentions any danger apart from those normally experienced when entering the ring. I assume this is because a heavyweight by being bigger has a naturally better punch resistance than the lower weights but I 'd be grateful for any other views on this topic. Cheers.

[MarkMcBurney]

Probably - I've often thought the same.

Looking at someone like Valuev and Haye for example, a seven stone difference means Haye has to land perfectly on the button to even wobble Valuev; but he could in theory trouble Haye with a jab.

I think at heavyweight though weight is relative to speed. Generally at that high a weight if there's a sizeable weight difference then the smaller guy will be considerably quicker and thus would offset most of the difference, unless he's just a lump who can't box or take any sort of punch at all.

[dookus]

Great post MachoMan. The single most important factor that extra size is supposed to increase (in terms of the reasoning behind having different weight divisions) is punch power; and yet with only a few exceptions (Wlad Klitschko and Lennox Lewis; possibly Riddick Bowe) the heaviest punchers of all time have been towards the lower end of the heavyweight limit. Marciano, Tyson, Louis, Dempsey, Shavers, Frazier, even an early Foreman were all smaller heavyweights in terms of their weight, but all possessed huge one-punch power. Much of this is because fighters carrying much more weight than this tend to lose the speed of movement that brings one-shot power.

[loaded_gloves]

Bigger is better. I sowed the seed personally, way back in 1939, and am directly responsible for all our modern mastodon heavyweights.

Thank me whenever.

Can you imagine going back in time and explaining to people in the 1940s and 50s how it would all turn out for the heavyweight division? And how lightly people on the internet would regard the athletic, fifteen rounds-at-a-pace killer heavyweights of those times?

Picture now a bright flash of camera lights and suddenly the esteemed Loaded Gloves pops up ringside, post Louis/Galento, impeccably turned out in peacock-feathered fedora, leopard print shirt, voluminous pantaloons and sharkskin shoes. Merrily I approach a reporter who's hunched over, hurriedly scribbling in his notebook.

Me: Hey, you, guess what! In sixty years’ time ‘Two Ton’ Tony won’t be an exception - all the heavyweights will be 40 pounds overweight!

Reporter: What? Why the hell would they all be so heavy?

Me: [Taking the tobacco pipe from my mouth] Why, for more power, stupid! Don’t you know?!

Reporter: ‘Power’? But what about fitness? What about footwork?

Me: Galento will have better fitness and footwork at that point - and he’ll be long dead!

Reporter: So, what, they’re all just going to be a bunch of lardballs?

Me: No ordinary lardballs, you cretin – they’ll be weight-lifting lardballs! Most of the fatties will have big biceps in the future! The fans will love it!

Reporter: Weight-lifters as well?! Are you serious? But what about speed and reflexes?

Me: Speed and reflexes will be old-fashioned ideas! You can’t maul and gasp and wheeze with big lumps if you’ve only got speed and reflexes, granddad!

Reporter: Well, surely they’ll at least lose weight by fighting so regularly?

Me. No! They’ll generally fight twice a year in the future! Sometimes only once a year – if we’re lucky.

Reporter: Oh my God! That sounds like some hellish freak show?! Why on earth would anyone watch it?!

Me: No one does! Just a minority of hardcores who think they’re watching the greatest, most powerful heavyweights of all time. People who think these stiff swollen oafs would swat your beloved Joe Louis like a fly.

Reporter: WHAT?!! What on earth would lead them to such an insane conclusion?

Me: [Taking a long suck on my tobacco pipe, considering the question] Well you see, scum, it's because Joe and people like him worked their bodies down to peak condition. Because they were athletes. Because he and his opponents lacked the prescience to step into the ring at a combined weight of half a ton. All these things will actually be held against them, and it will be said with absolute certainty that they couldn’t beat a big heavy guy, let alone hurt him! How could such a feeble man dent a mighty morass of fat and muscle?! It's impossible! In the future we call it 'physics', retard!

Reporter: WHAT?! But Joe just massacred a 233lb cannon ball! Lifted him clean off his god damn feet! He near beheaded a 6’6’, 260lb Carnera! Horrific! And, even though I shouldn’t know this because it hasn’t happened yet, but for the purposes of this conversation I do, what about when he applies innate speed and ingenious technique to damn near kill giants like Simon and Buddy Baer?! Sprays the whole first three rows with gore! And what about when Dempsey broke Willard’s skull! Does it all count for nothing?

Me: IT'S LIKE YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO LEARN! None of those fights matter you fool! They're all on boring black & white film and, as such, didn’t really happen! Also, those giants you mentioned are actually inferior, because they didn’t drink protein shakes you see. Or even bother to build up a long run of WBO defences, while being sponsored by a subscription TV channel, fighting men not even ranked in the top 10. These things mean a great deal in the future. [I remove my hands from around his throat]

Reporter: So who is the champ in the future? Is he some big freaky power puncher then?

Me: Ah, I'm glad you ask. Well there’s generally three or four ‘champions’ at any one time, but basically it’s this 6’8’’ weight lifter who everyone thinks is one of the biggest punchers ever, even though with his bulging pecs and beefy biceps he couldn’t so much as knock down the likes of Corrie Sanders and Shannon Briggs.

Reporter: And what the hell are those?

Me: Those what?

Reporter: Those guys you just mentioned! The two Irish bums!

Me: Oh, Corrie and Shannon! Yes, two historically fragile, basically immobile, forty pound overweight forty year olds.

Reporter: FORTY FUGGIN’ YEARS OLD????!!!!

Me: Oh yes, that’s another thing: in the future all of the heavyweights will be around thirty-five to forty years old.

Reporter: Jesus Christ. I’m glad I’ll be dead.

Me: Can you kill me too?

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

Bigger is better. I sowed the seed personally, way back in 1939, and am directly responsible for all our modern mastodon heavyweights.

Thank me whenever.

Can you imagine going back in time and explaining to people in the 1940s and 50s how it would all turn out for the heavyweight division? And how lightly people on the internet would regard the athletic, fifteen rounds-at-a-pace killer heavyweights of those times?

Picture now a bright flash of camera lights and suddenly the esteemed Loaded Gloves pops up ringside, post Louis/Galento, impeccably turned out in peacock-feathered fedora, leopard print shirt, voluminous pantaloons and sharkskin shoes. Merrily I approach a reporter who's hunched over, hurriedly scribbling in his notebook.

Me: Hey, you, guess what! In sixty years’ time ‘Two Ton’ Tony won’t be an exception - all the heavyweights will be 40 pounds overweight!

Reporter: What? Why the hell would they all be so heavy?

Me: [Taking the tobacco pipe from my mouth] Why, for more power, stupid! Don’t you know?!

Reporter: ‘Power’? But what about fitness? What about footwork?

Me: Galento will have better fitness and footwork at that point - and he’ll be long dead!

Reporter: So, what, they’re all just going to be a bunch of lardballs?

Me: No ordinary lardballs, you cretin – they’ll be weight-lifting lardballs! Most of the fatties will have big biceps in the future! The fans will love it!

Reporter: Weight-lifters as well?! Are you serious? But what about speed and reflexes?

Me: Speed and reflexes will be old-fashioned ideas! You can’t maul and gasp and wheeze with big lumps if you’ve only got speed and reflexes, granddad!

Reporter: Well, surely they’ll at least lose weight by fighting so regularly?

Me. No! They’ll generally fight twice a year in the future! Sometimes only once a year – if we’re lucky.

Reporter: Oh my God! That sounds like some hellish freak show?! Why on earth would anyone watch it?!

Me: No one does! Just a minority of hardcores who think they’re watching the greatest, most powerful heavyweights of all time. People who think these stiff swollen oafs would swat your beloved Joe Louis like a fly.

Reporter: WHAT?!! What on earth would lead them to such an insane conclusion?

Me: [Taking a long suck on my tobacco pipe, considering the question] Well you see, scum, it's because Joe and people like him worked their bodies down to peak condition. Because they were athletes. Because he and his opponents lacked the prescience to step into the ring at a combined weight of half a ton. All these things will actually be held against them, and it will be said with absolute certainty that they couldn’t beat a big heavy guy, let alone hurt him! How could such a feeble man dent a mighty morass of fat and muscle?! It's impossible! In the future we call it 'physics', retard!

Reporter: WHAT?! But Joe just massacred a 233lb cannon ball! Lifted him clean off his god damn feet! He near beheaded a 6’6’, 260lb Carnera! Horrific! And, even though I shouldn’t know this because it hasn’t happened yet, but for the purposes of this conversation I do, what about when he applies innate speed and ingenious technique to damn near kill giants like Simon and Buddy Baer?! Sprays the whole first three rows with gore! And what about when Dempsey broke Willard’s skull! Does it all count for nothing?

Me: IT'S LIKE YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO LEARN! None of those fights matter you fool! They're all on boring black & white film and, as such, didn’t really happen! Also, those giants you mentioned are actually inferior, because they didn’t drink protein shakes you see. Or even bother to build up a long run of WBO defences, while being sponsored by a subscription TV channel, fighting men not even ranked in the top 10. These things mean a great deal in the future. [I remove my hands from around his throat]

Reporter: So who is the champ in the future? Is he some big freaky power puncher then?

Me: Ah, I'm glad you ask. Well there’s generally three or four ‘champions’ at any one time, but basically it’s this 6’8’’ weight lifter who everyone thinks is one of the biggest punchers ever, even though with his bulging pecs and beefy biceps he couldn’t so much as knock down the likes of Corrie Sanders and Shannon Briggs.

Reporter: And what the hell are those?

Me: Those what?

Reporter: Those guys you just mentioned! The two Irish bums!

Me: Oh, Corrie and Shannon! Yes, two historically fragile, basically immobile, forty pound overweight forty year olds.

Reporter: FORTY FUGGIN’ YEARS OLD????!!!!

Me: Oh yes, that’s another thing: in the future all of the heavyweights will be around thirty-five to forty years old.

Reporter: Jesus Christ. I’m glad I’ll be dead.

Me: Can you kill me too?

I thought you were gone after yesterday?

[loaded_gloves]

Boxing is built on glorious comebacks just like this one!

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

Boxing is built on glorious comebacks just like this one!

It's you! Audley! How are you buddy?

[jameswilson]

Boxing is built on glorious comebacks just like this one!

It's you! Audley! How are you buddy?

He who has his own pathway don't need no map.......or was it the other way around I can't remember?

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

Boxing is built on glorious comebacks just like this one!

It's you! Audley! How are you buddy?

He who has his own pathway don't need no map.......or was it the other way around I can't remember?

One of the greatest speeches of all time, Helder's face after it was priceless!

[the truth]

You for really? Foreman was a massive heavyweight , all the fighters you mentioned were actually quite big for the weight at the time , none were " light" in their day

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

You for really? Foreman was a massive heavyweight , all the fighters you mentioned were actually quite big for the weight at the time , none were " light" in their day

6ft 3ins and 15 and a half stone. He wasn't massive, even back then. He was around
the same size as Joe Bugner.

[dookus]

You for really? Foreman was a massive heavyweight , all the fighters you mentioned were actually quite big for the weight at the time , none were " light" in their day

There have been plenty of fighters in the 240+ range for as long as the division's been around. There are simply far more of them around these days. The fighters I all mentioned were all between 190-210 pounds in their prime (with the exception of Foreman - who at around 220 in his prime, was still far smaller than the big heavyweights of today). Marciano and Dempsey are two of the smallest heavyweight champions of all time; Shavers, widely considered the heaviest single shotter in history, weighed in around 210 for most of his career. The biggest hitters in the game have historically been the smaller heavyweights, who are sufficiently strong to throw powerful shots without the loss of speed that over-sized fighters suffer from.

Secondly, as loaded_gloves makes rather clear, the real issue is whether the increased bulk of modern heavyweights has led to harder-hitting fighters. It hasn't. None of the fighters I mentioned would be harder punchers if you added 10 pounds of muscle and 10 pounds of flab to them.

[polecateddy]

I think it's easy for people who have never been in the ring with a big heavyweight to make generalisations along the lines of being big is no great advantage. Punching power aside, I think physical strength is relevant too. Unless you're Mike Tyson most smaller heavies are forced into a counter-punching role which is in itself draining. As are clinches with the bigger boxer. Just look how quickly an excellent athlete like Cunningham wore down against a Tyson Fury at his crudest.

[jameswilson]

It's you! Audley! How are you buddy?

He who has his own pathway don't need no map.......or was it the other way around I can't remember?

One of the greatest speeches of all time, Helder's face after it was priceless!

I bet you were eating a packet of walkers crisps when he said 'sitting there eating your walkers crisps!'

[el_grande_mauro_mina]

It's you! Audley! How are you buddy?

He who has his own pathway don't need no map.......or was it the other way around I can't remember?

One of the greatest speeches of all time, Helder's face after it was priceless!

I bet you were eating a packet of walkers crisps when he said 'sitting there eating your walkers crisps!'

And sat on the couch with my fat gut.

[dookus]

I think it's easy for people who have never been in the ring with a big heavyweight to make generalisations along the lines of being big is no great advantage. Punching power aside, I think physical strength is relevant too. Unless you're Mike Tyson most smaller heavies are forced into a counter-punching role which is in itself draining. As are clinches with the bigger boxer. Just look how quickly an excellent athlete like Cunningham wore down against a Tyson Fury at his crudest.

This is true - size plays a part in other ways too and can be used to overcome more athletic smaller opponents - especially if allied to a good chin and stamina. My focus was on how the biggest hitters are almost invariably from the small end of the heavyweight scale, but of course punch power and athleticism are only a part (albeit an important one) of who wins a boxing contest.

[Final round]

Some interesting posts but i was under the impression that weight classes were created under the terms of fair play. Pitch two blokes of a similar size against each other rather than some massive unit against someone smaller all around.
Of course not everyone punches their weight or has the correct technique to execute it but the HW division disregards the logic that a hard puncher several stones heavier than another hard puncher has a bigger advantage.
Valuev was a 100lbs heavier than Haye, imagine if he fought and punched like Wlad now there would have been a decapitation.Fury was 44lbs heavier than Cunningham for me it was the size that made the difference in the fight. Fury lumped him out of there.
That anything goes above 200lbs seems a bit of a freakshow.

[polecateddy]

Definitely too much stock is put into Haye/Valuev as some kind of shining example in the big/small debate. The truth is Valuev was past his best and practically crippled by major joint issues. If he managed a days roadwork in preparation I'd be surprised. And it's no coincidence he's not fought since. Also, Valuev similarly to Corey Saunders, never punched his weight. Usually even good cruisers like Al Cole could not transition to heavyweight with much success. That Haye and Adamek can do it with high top ten world rankings is something of an sad indictment of the talent of this generations heavies. Holyfield also pulled off the trick, but I suspect it took more than a cabinet of PEDs and an iron will to make the leap up.

[Final round]

I am disregarding the form of Valuev at the time if he had punched his weight and had good technique that would have clearly not been a fair fight.
Adamek getting pasted by Klitchskso was so one sided in size and power that it could have taken place in a Ukranian interrogation cell

[TopGun]

I think that a Super Heavy division will need to be put in place soon. Generations are getting bigger and taller. It will not be safe. There is a massive gap between most HW's weight and that of someone who just tips over cruiserweight limit but cannot drain themselves to make the CW limit anymore.

Most HW's are now 17 stone +

[Heretic]

I think that a Super Heavy division will need to be put in place soon. Generations are getting bigger and taller. It will not be safe. There is a massive gap between most HW's weight and that of someone who just tips over cruiserweight limit but cannot drain themselves to make the CW limit anymore.

Most HW's are now 17 stone +

I'm not sure that making new division would be the best answer for this problem... I think that most of the smaller heavys should go down to CW where they belong. Most boxer who weight in below 225 could quite easily make the limit for CW with daybefore weightins... This would probably solve the problem and make CW the best weightclass in boxing

[Clint Magnum]

I think that a Super Heavy division will need to be put in place soon. Generations are getting bigger and taller. It will not be safe. There is a massive gap between most HW's weight and that of someone who just tips over cruiserweight limit but cannot drain themselves to make the CW limit anymore.

Most HW's are now 17 stone +

The most effective HW are still around 225lbs. There are bigger ones but a vast amount of current HW are overweight, (whether fat ot muscle) sacrificing speed and reflexes for strength, assuming more strength equals more power. Boxing isn't about hitting an immobile target as hard as possible, its about hitting a moving target and being mobile enough to do so and move in and out of range quickly and effectively!
Optimum weight is only useful if you have the speed and technique to transfer the weight correctly from your core into your trunk and then through your shoulders onto the punch. However the extra weight you may want unfortunately also slows this process down (as well as the extra stress on the cardiovascular system that extra muscle causes due to its needs for oxygenated blood).
Each HW is different but there is a cutoff point that each fighter should know, when the extra weight becomes a burden to mobility/reflexes and speed. I now weigh 280lbs but hit no harder than when I fought at 248lbs. I can hit harder with a single punch but that punch would be slower and less able to hit a moving target once thrown. Its simple physics, which is why the older HW had the better combination of enough weight to hit and and hurt and enough speed, mobility and cardio to keep hitting hard for round after round. The likes of Haye, Holyfield, Tyson, Shavers, etc also show this as the most effective weight/size combo. Some fighters are genetically freakish but the vast majority live up to this principle but the vast majority of modern HW are either unaware or have trianers who lack the years of such physiological knowledge.

[loaded_gloves]

All those 6'3'' heavyweights of the 70s would be 240lb or 250lb if they too wanted to box while overweight.

Wouldn't be much benefit fighting an opponent in peak physical condition and fit enough to fight and move for fifteen rounds. It would be a disadvantage.

Now we have big heavy strong men gasping for breath and biffing each other around at a pace that would shame a snail.

To claim a behemoth like George Foreman isn't a big man - at half an inch under 6'4'', a reach longer than Vitali Klitschko, giant fists, huge arms, treetrunk thighs - simply because he was sensible enough to boil himself down from 240lb to a trim, athletic 215lb is frankly ridiculous.

[dookus]

I think that a Super Heavy division will need to be put in place soon. Generations are getting bigger and taller. It will not be safe. There is a massive gap between most HW's weight and that of someone who just tips over cruiserweight limit but cannot drain themselves to make the CW limit anymore.

Most HW's are now 17 stone +

People are not getting taller anymore in the developed world. The only reason people of the 18th and 19th centuries seem so short to us is because of the prevalence of malnutrition during those periods; this came from having an exploding population size without enough available protein, the consequence being that most people were of stunted growth. Going back to the Middle Ages, the average height would be closer (thought not identical) to the modern standard, because there was a more even match between the amount of protein available to feed people and the population size.

In 2013, people get enough protein to grow to the size their genetics dictate they should be at. Additionally, our genetics are not changing to make us taller because there is no evolutionary selection pressure that would lead to the average height of people having to increase.

It is certainly true that people are getting heavier; outside of the obesity epidemic, this is happening in athletes because of far superior modern nutritional knowledge and much improved resistance training methods of putting on muscle.

The most effective power/size combo remains, as with my list of all-time punchers above, between 190-220. We can speculate all we like about 'what if Valuev could punch his weight', but the fact is that he cannot punch his weight because his size is way outside of the ideal range for a boxer to be; he is too big to effectively transfer his bodyweight at high enough speed through his fist to hit hard. And as I said above, out of the super-sized heavyweights there are very few who can; Lennox Lewis and Wlad Klitschko are two examples of in-shape 240+ heavyweights who could 'punch their weight'. Even so, fighters like Shavers hit harder than them despite weighing a good 30 pounds less.

[Final round]

I'd say people ARE getting taller and Valuev couldn't punch his weight down to poor technique although he clearly improved the power behind his jab.
David Price can punch his weight better than Tyson Fury can. It's down to technique and having the tools to be able to do it.