Size matters

[tagjohnson]

Something I've noticed over the years watching fights is that a fighter's size is more than height and weight. I mean some fighters are a lot bigger than their height and weight. If you'll look at an old George Foreman fight you'll notice how much bigger than his opponents he looks even when he technically has only a slight size advantage like with Ali or Lyle. Even the announcers would talk about how big he was and Muhammad and Ron were not little men. Or if you've seen the Quarry & Shavers fight. According to the tale of the tape Earnie was only an inch taller and eight pounds heavier but looked huge compared to Jerry. Not just heayweights either; Marvin Hagler was often shorter than his opponents and he usually weighed in a couple pounds under the 160 limit so he would be the smaller man, but looked much bigger. I'm talking about conditioning either, some guys are just really big and others aren't. Just an observation.

[tagjohnson]

No kidding, he was monster.

[silkov]

It's got to do with build and size of the bones.... Bob Foster was about 6 feet 3 but seemed drawfed by Frazier and Ali when he fought them because their builds were so much naturally bigger... this is why you can have two guys standing 5 feet 10 yet one will be a heavyweight and the other a featherweight...

[tagjohnson]

Exactly.

[Ezzard]

Eubank always looked much bigger than his opponents, as did McClellan. Nigel Benn always looked small at his weight.

[Jaclem]

..sonny used to come into the ring with towells stuffed under his robe..to make his shoulders and chest look even beiiger than they were. the intimidation started early...

[KO Artist]

Sonny Liston would fit into this category too. Looking at his official measurements he doesn't seem particularly big but he was broad, muscular, had an sbsolutely massive reach and huge, huge fists. I bet he was incredibly intimidating up close........

Yes, Liston stood only 6'1 and weighed 210-218.

Roman Greenberg is 6'2 and 230 lbs, but Liston was a much bigger man.

Listons fists were fornicating HUGE and he also had size 15 feet.

With todays training, nutrition and weight traning, liston would be the equivalent of Ibeabeuci, say 240 lbs.

[Grimm]

Why the hell does everyone keep saying with the nutrition and shit of today fighters would be bigger????


Why the hell would they try to get bigger???

Boxing is not fornicating football, all those dumb extra muscles do not help you when your getting punched in them.

All that huge excess muscle does is make you slower.

[babulous]

Something I've noticed over the years watching fights is that a fighter's size is more than height and weight. I mean some fighters are a lot bigger than their height and weight. If you'll look at an old George Foreman fight you'll notice how much bigger than his opponents he looks even when he technically has only a slight size advantage like with Ali or Lyle. Even the announcers would talk about how big he was and Muhammad and Ron were not little men. Or if you've seen the Quarry & Shavers fight. According to the tale of the tape Earnie was only an inch taller and eight pounds heavier but looked huge compared to Jerry. Not just heayweights either; Marvin Hagler was often shorter than his opponents and he usually weighed in a couple pounds under the 160 limit so he would be the smaller man, but looked much bigger. I'm talking about conditioning either, some guys are just really big and others aren't. Just an observation.

I thought Jeff Lacy was a cruiserweight when first saw him.

[tagjohnson]

Just saw the Earnie Shavers/Tex Cobb fight for the first time on ESPN Classis. Earnie was just about a perfect example of what I'm talking about Tex was 6'3", 232 vs 6'1" 208 for Earnie and Shavers actually made Cobb (a former college football player and heavy duty weightlifter)look scrawny.