BoxRec

jamamb wrote: ↑21 Mar 2018, 19:39 i feel like having shw size, lets say 6'6 240 in shape, with an 80+ inch reach, is certanly an advantage over someone who is cruiser or lhw sized

a lot of top hws of past eras would, if taken in there actual size, be no larger then cruisers or lhws of today.

I posted earlier that Lennox Lewis would face little opposition from Holmes era and back. All athletes are bigger/stronger/faster...

i mean, look at guys like jack johnson and joe louis and dempsey.

all 6'0 or barely over and regularly weighing below 200. if they cut like guys do today theyd probably be not far off lhw. some light heavys who are around 6'2 enter the ring at over 190 on fight night but do people think a match like bivol vs aj would not have size as a massive factor?

and 'big' george foreman was 6'3 with a 78 inch reach, just like cruiser usyk. and george averaged around 215 without draining in his prime, whereas thats near 'small' 6'7/83 wilders career low.

but id like to know more about the shws of past generations. do ppl think guys like willard would beat guys like aj.

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑20 Mar 2018, 19:54 That being said, I would have loved to have seen Dempsey against Luther McCarty who was 6'4" and 230 pounds and had excellent ring generalship for the time. I would have loved to have seen Tunney up against someone like George Godfrey, a truly enormous and talented man for the era.

You're dreaming Homicide.... Luther McCarty wasn't 230 pounds... He was barely bigger than a Cruiserweight.

Willard weighed in the 220's or less until his last several fights when he was a bloated fat boy....

Willard only had ONE (1) fight in FOUR (4) years when he met (not fought) Dempsey... And was extremely FAAAAAAT!!!!!

Does that sound like anybody who loved to fight??? ... Or was interested in being a good boxer????

I love how you never answer these questions.

BoxBuzz wrote: ↑20 Mar 2018, 14:07 Now Kalan......this does not mean that an auto mechanic the size of let's say Wilt could be the champion.....Because skill counts for a lot. And no one is going to gain that much in 6 months. But overall.....I'm not sure that we should be dismissing the idea to easily.

A faction of this has to do with Chamberlain's massive size and strength.... According to Football legend and great Jim Brown and may others, Chamberlain was the greatest athlete of all time... Dominated on both ends of the court.. 100 points in a single game.. Most rebounds ever in a single game (55).... Leading the NBA many seasons in minutes played, often attracting the attention of 3 or 4 players on the other team, and even leading the NBA in assists.

Ali showed the most intelligence by NOT entering a ring with Wilt Chamberlain even AFTER promoting the fight with him.

Chamberlain sure as Hell TRIED to get the Ali fight... Chamberlain and Ali went around promoting the fight but Ali kept coming up with excuses like the following for why he wouldn't sign the contract... "I accept your challenge AFTER I fight a few more contenders. IF I beat them" ....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF57P1uUG0s

Would somebody (ANYBODY) please tell me why Ali's on TV promoting a fight with Wilt Chamberlain if he wants to fight a few more contenders FIRST???? .... Admit it folks... That doesn't make a lick of sense. He doesn't want to fight.

PLUS, If Ali is on TV promoting a coming fight with Wilt Chamberlain... WHY is Wilt "rushing things" by asking Ali to sign the contract??? And asking Ali HOW LONG it's going to take him to SIGN the contract??? .... How is that rushing things?

BuzzBox???? ...... ANYONE???

jamamb wrote: ↑21 Mar 2018, 19:20

littlepug wrote: ↑21 Mar 2018, 06:48

jamamb wrote: ↑20 Mar 2018, 23:13 how good were the old heavys who would still be considered shws today?

would willard and carnera beat the current likes of joshua?

Cant compare because of social, ecenomic, medical, financial, scientific and evolutionary differences between those eras, how do you match them ? Send Josh back to that time ? Bring those boys into our time ? Have them meet as they are ? Its a fruitless task.

i take everyone as they are/were in inter generational hypos

ppl say, oh, there were shws in other generations too and they got beaten up, but how do those guys compare to the giants of recent times like aj, vitali, lewis, bowe, etc.

did willard and canera have the beating of these guys? at least a few of them? who were the other best early giants?

I think Lewis and Bowe (for a shorter period of time) were better than the bigger heavyweights that came before them. There have been fighters smaller than them that were better.
The Klitschkos were not better than all of them.
Willard and Carnera did win the title and had some other notable wins. They also have notable losses.
Buddy Baer was a really big guy. He had some success but never won the title. Sometimes he beat top contenders and sometimes lost. Was 0-2 vs Joe Louis.
Abe Simon was another big from that era though not as good. He had ups and downs.
These guys fought several fights against top guys form their day, unlike recent times, where every prospect starts off 20-0 and the best guys all avoid each other.
We don't really know how good Joshua or many other top guys are because they won't fight each other.

Is there any era in the history of the sport where the best guy was also the biggest guy? No.
If size was so important, then it would happen all of the time.
We need to look at what has actually happened in the real world, instead of just going by the "bigger is better" theory.

BoxBuzz wrote: ↑20 Mar 2018, 14:07 I'm really not attempting to create chaos or unrest, but there is one area of discussion that I think is ripe for analytics.

Although it may never change. anything

The point regarding the HW division about big vs small.

Why would at some random weight, would weight no longer be an issue?

I've been so jaded about a champion with a perfect record that I have often disrespected Marciano....being small and perfect just bugged me. lol. And for my opinion....I just thought he was lucky.....did he marry an Irish woman? Not sure....anyway these days the bigger guys do seem to be in charge.......does anyone think Rocky cleans up on these behemoths?

I can't buy it. And it makes sense once the level of skill becomes evened out that bigger is often going to be better.


Now Kalan......this does not mean that an auto mechanic the size of let's say Wilt could be the champion.....Because skill counts for a lot. And no one is going to gain that much in 6 months. But overall.....I'm not sure that we should be dismissing the idea to easily.

Just my two cents.

And what is the practical outcome of this? Do we make subdivision for every 25 pounds over 200? Or just let the 200 pound champion go the way of the Dodo?

Rocky is too small to defeat the modern HWs. Same for Charles, Tunney, Walcott, Patterson, Sharkey, Schmeling, etc...

Charles, Tunney, Rocky and Jersey Joe were better boxers/fighters than Bowe, Foreman and many others but the size difference is too much for them to overcome.

Some boxers found smaller opponents trickier. Dempsey preferred a slower big guy in the other corner. Ali generally had more trouble with smaller opponents than the bigger ones.

Holyfield could compete because (1) he was a great fighter (2) he juiced and (3) he had an iron chin.

Kalan wrote: ↑22 Mar 2018, 03:38

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑20 Mar 2018, 19:54 That being said, I would have loved to have seen Dempsey against Luther McCarty who was 6'4" and 230 pounds and had excellent ring generalship for the time. I would have loved to have seen Tunney up against someone like George Godfrey, a truly enormous and talented man for the era.

You're dreaming Homicide.... Luther McCarty wasn't 230 pounds... He was barely bigger than a Cruiserweight.

Willard weighed in the 220's or less until his last several fights when he was a bloated fat boy....

Willard only had ONE (1) fight in FOUR (4) years when he met (not fought) Dempsey... And was extremely FAAAAAAT!!!!!

Does that sound like anybody who loved to fight??? ... Or was interested in being a good boxer????

I love how you never answer these questions.

You're not taking into account what these men weighed when they weren't training. They naturally were that big, and back then the emphasis was on being as light as possible. Heavyweights back then cared about their performance and overall abilities, and refused to come in too heavy.

As for bouts of inactivity, let's look at it this way: if you could make $10,000-20,000 a week in the Great Depression and prior doing exhibitions and starring in stage productions or appearing in circuses... Do you blame Willard and others for not defending the title often?

In a sense, you were losing very good and very easy money whenever you went into training camp for a title defense you could possibly lose. It made almost no sense to defend the title.

Bivol walks around as heavy as Marciano, but to pit him against AJ would be stupid..

A few small Heavyweights and Cruiserweights could certainly have beaten David Price... Lance Whitaker... Julius Long... Tye Fields... Michael Grant... Alexander Dimitrenko and many other big guys who were good enough to become semi-famous.

There's a lot of big Heavyweights who were so bad nobody ever heard about them... Most super huge men are more uncoordinated than athletes of normal size... 7-foot men are very rare (when is the last time you've seen one) only 1 of every 73 guys 7' tall who play basketball is capable of making it to the NBA.. Even most who make the NBA lack coordination.

People who think it's all about coaching and skills... That's really a bogus idea... It's all about raw talent.. .The talented can grasp and learn the skills you're trying to coach into them.. Most can't to a large degree because they're not gifted.

If you ask a one-in-a-million athlete to jump over a car you won't have to tell him how.. You won't have to coach him how to make his approach, plant his foot and power his take off.. He'll just stand off a good distance, take a running jump and clear the car with magnificent ease.. 99 out of 100 people couldn't jump over a car if you gave them a million dollars. A very good athlete gets on to stuff you're showing him because he has the balance, speed, coordination, spring, power, and the natural instincts to do it... You know damned well when you see a great prospect, because you haven't seen one for a while.

Big is pretty unusual... Big and good is 100 X more unusual... The reason it's happening more today, is the world population has multiplied... Boxing has expanded to many more countries... More good, big men have emerged... It's not going to stop happening... The days when a 200-pound man wins the Heavyweight Championship are gone.

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑22 Mar 2018, 21:15 You're not taking into account what these men weighed when they weren't training ..... As for bouts of inactivity, let's look at it this way: if you could make $10,000-20,000 a week in the Great Depression and prior doing exhibitions and starring in stage productions or appearing in circuses... Do you blame Willard and others for not defending the title often?

So FAT is the weight you're talking about??? I'm talking FIGHTING WEIGHT ... Walk around weight is irrelevant.

And Willard NEVER made 10 to 20,000 dollars a week doing exhibitions and sparring... You made that up... He wouldn't have been such a fat cow when he faced Dempsey if he'd been active doing exhibitions... He made 100,000 fighting Dempsey... I'm sure he never made that doing 5 weeks of exhibitions... Dempsey didn't even make that.

Ezzard wrote: ↑22 Mar 2018, 16:37

BoxBuzz wrote: ↑20 Mar 2018, 14:07 I'm really not attempting to create chaos or unrest, but there is one area of discussion that I think is ripe for analytics.

Although it may never change. anything

The point regarding the HW division about big vs small.

Why would at some random weight, would weight no longer be an issue?

I've been so jaded about a champion with a perfect record that I have often disrespected Marciano....being small and perfect just bugged me. lol. And for my opinion....I just thought he was lucky.....did he marry an Irish woman? Not sure....anyway these days the bigger guys do seem to be in charge.......does anyone think Rocky cleans up on these behemoths?

I can't buy it. And it makes sense once the level of skill becomes evened out that bigger is often going to be better.


Now Kalan......this does not mean that an auto mechanic the size of let's say Wilt could be the champion.....Because skill counts for a lot. And no one is going to gain that much in 6 months. But overall.....I'm not sure that we should be dismissing the idea to easily.

Just my two cents.

And what is the practical outcome of this? Do we make subdivision for every 25 pounds over 200? Or just let the 200 pound champion go the way of the Dodo?

Rocky is too small to defeat the modern HWs. Same for Charles, Tunney, Walcott, Patterson, Sharkey, Schmeling, etc...

Charles, Tunney, Rocky and Jersey Joe were better boxers/fighters than Bowe, Foreman and many others but the size difference is too much for them to overcome.

People say size difference is too much to overcome. Where is the evidence that heavyweight around the 190-200 range can't beat these guys?
Louis did multiple times. Buddy Baer, Carnera, Simon all weighed over 250. Dempsey did it as well. Sharkey beat Carnera the first time.
How about people start giving real life examples of a really big guy beating a great fighter that weighed around 190-200 pounds. Carnera was 1-1 vs Sharkey and beat Loughran. That seems to be about it.

Keep hearing a lot of about the theories that bigger is better.. How about somebody actually gives some actual results.

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑23 Mar 2018, 10:47 How about people start giving real life examples of a really big guy beating a great fighter that weighed around 190-200 pounds. Carnera was 1-1 vs Sharkey and beat Loughran. That seems to be about it .... Keep hearing a lot of about the theories that bigger is better.. How about somebody actually gives some actual results.

Maybe you never heard of Floyd Patterson??? He was a great fighter in that weight range who got murdered instantly each time he faced the much bigger and more powerful Sonny Liston. Size and strength was a big factor.

Maybe you never heard of Joe Frazier??? Frazier was a small Heavyweight just over the 200 pound weight range when he wasn’t fat. Not being very big or tall, he was knocked down 6 times and trashed in 2 rounds by the much bigger, taller, and much more powerful George Foreman. Size and strength had a lot to do with those 2 brutal drubbings.

Maybe you didn’t notice by when former cruiserweights World Champions David Haye and Jean Marc Mormeck fought Wladimir Klitschko they did very poorly. They were too small to compete.

You’re the only person who doesn’t notice these things, but Basketball and Football players have gotten much bigger, stronger, and faster since the 1950’s. Boxing has evolved as well and Heavyweights are bigger as well.

Except for Leon Spinks and Michael Spinks, who weren’t champions long, there’s NOT been a man weighing under 200 pounds winning the Heavyweight Championship in 50 years, since Jimmy Ellis did it in 1968. In the last 25 years there’s been no Heavyweight Champions under 200 pounds.. From 1900 to 1968, there were roughly 17 Heavyweight Champions who weighed under 200 pounds with Tommy Burns being the smallest. Jack London called him a “pygmy versus a Colossus” when he tried to fight Jack Johnson, implying that Johnson was too big and strong for the little dude.

So Boxing is evolving... There hasn’t been any boxers 190 to 200 pounds fighting for the Heavyweight Title in the last generation because they wouldn’t stand a chance in Hell against modern, massively bigger Heavyweights.

Boxing has expanded to many more countries and the world population has multiplied... It’s doubtful we’ll see any more challengers who weigh under 200 pounds because they’re no longer competitive... And obviously there are many more men 6’ to 6’3” than there are 6’6” to 6’9” so it’s not due to a lack of candidates.

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑23 Mar 2018, 10:47
People say size difference is too much to overcome. Where is the evidence that heavyweight around the 190-200 range can't beat these guys?
Louis did multiple times. Buddy Baer, Carnera, Simon all weighed over 250. Dempsey did it as well. Sharkey beat Carnera the first time.
How about people start giving real life examples of a really big guy beating a great fighter that weighed around 190-200 pounds. Carnera was 1-1 vs Sharkey and beat Loughran. That seems to be about it.

Keep hearing a lot of about the theories that bigger is better.. How about somebody actually gives some actual results.

The problem is the CW division came into effect almost 40 years ago so there aren't going to be any recent examples of someone weighing 190-200lbs beating a large HW. The big guys of the past were not normally that great to start with.

That is the fall back. The big guys now must be better than the big guys used to be. Because we have no evidence that weight is an advantage we have to claim that they must be better now without much to back it up.
And for some people this what this is really about. Some people like to say that modern heavyweights are better. The weight thing is there quick go to. nothing more to see here. But if you really think about it, the evidence is overwhelming that size "advantage" is not really an advantage at all; at least a certain point.

You don't see too many guys under 200 going after the heavyweight title. Or 210 or even 220. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be any.
The last time a guy under 200 (Roy Jones) fought for the title, he won. Before Micheal Spinks was right at 200 when he beat Holmes.

Watch the videos. People dismiss the oldtimers out of hand. Have they actually seen them? Nobody (nobody reasonable anyway) can ever come up with any specific thing that Vitaly Klitschko did well other than supposedly having a great chin. I don't see how he is any better than Buddy Baer.

If bigger is really better, Valuev would have completely dominated.
Even Lennox Lewis had all kinds of trouble with Zlejko Mavrovic who weighed less than 215. Lewis was over 240.

Look at Wilder. He usually weighs in the 220s. He routinely beats guys i much heavier than him. Last fight he weighed less than 215.
More people need to start considering the negatives of being heavier. Most all, they need to start thinking about what a specific fighter can and can't do, regardless if he weighs 200 or 250 or anything in between.

who has been much heaver then 6'7/83 reach deontay for reasons other then fat

do you really beleve arreola and stverne are much naturally bgger men? arreola at a career low 220s was still softer then wlder at around 230 and he of course was several nches shorter

at 6'7/83/and a lean 225 or so hes a large hw for pretty much all eras. whereas 6 foot hws who weighed at 200 or under w/o draining would probably be closer to lhws today. but no one acts today as though lhw vs hw is all good

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑23 Mar 2018, 16:07 That is the fall back. The big guys now must be better than the big guys used to be. Because we have no evidence that weight is an advantage we have to claim that they must be better now without much to back it up.
And for some people this what this is really about. Some people like to say that modern heavyweights are better. The weight thing is there quick go to. nothing more to see here. But if you really think about it, the evidence is overwhelming that size "advantage" is not really an advantage at all; at least a certain point.

You don't see too many guys under 200 going after the heavyweight title. Or 210 or even 220. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be any.
The last time a guy under 200 (Roy Jones) fought for the title, he won. Before Micheal Spinks was right at 200 when he beat Holmes.

Watch the videos. People dismiss the oldtimers out of hand. Have they actually seen them? Nobody (nobody reasonable anyway) can ever come up with any specific thing that Vitaly Klitschko did well other than supposedly having a great chin. I don't see how he is any better than Buddy Baer.

If bigger is really better, Valuev would have completely dominated.
Even Lennox Lewis had all kinds of trouble with Zlejko Mavrovic who weighed less than 215. Lewis was over 240.

Look at Wilder. He usually weighs in the 220s. He routinely beats guys i much heavier than him. Last fight he weighed less than 215.
More people need to start considering the negatives of being heavier. Most all, they need to start thinking about what a specific fighter can and can't do, regardless if he weighs 200 or 250 or anything in between.

There are always exceptions because styles make fights. Louis struggled to beat Billy Conn who was a LHW. Jones picked Ruiz for a reason, he didn't hang about to fight anyone else. If your skilled and smaller then yes you will do well against a bigger less skilled opponent. Wilder was still over 15 stone, which is more than most of the peak old timers, and he has the added advantage of being 6'7" with an 83" reach and one punch KO power.

ya just odd how deontays being singled out when hes got the dmensons of an nba player and averages a lean 225 or so. hes naturally bgger than almost everyone he faces and almost all top hws of past eras

please dont tell me that hes naturally a smaller man than obese bermane stverne or arreola

Yes he is heavier than most of the old time heavyweights. But he is smaller than most of the current one. If weight is all that, then he should not be beating fighters bigger than himself. Yet he does it over and over. I'm sure his reach helps. But it's mostly because he is simply better than these bigger guys he is fighting. The needle on the scale doesn't help you once the bell rings.
jamamb ask why Wilder gets singled out. Well, he is about the only heavyweight around who doesn't way ton. It has to be more than a coincidence that he has done so well.

are ppl really sayng pounds of a bunch of excess fat help?

but guys such as aj and the bros and lennox are natural shws not just lard asses

them beng outweghed by fatties such as arreola doesnt really = size not all that relevant . and of course you factor heght and reach as part of that--deontay has loads of that.

ehh not sure on that. adamek chambers and jennngs were all around and they contended but none could get the job done at the top. they were around 6'2 and naturally smaller. haye as well was a smaller man wth a lot of good athletic tools but couldnt get the job done at the hghest level. theres plenty of other guys such as this down the ratings too.

glazov and mansour as well. calvn brock. hammer. uss cunngham lost to an upcomng fury almost precsly because of size.

and then many guys who arent successful enough for ppl to even care about.

doesnt mean smaller cant beat bgger ...weve seen that often...but when you have naturally large men who are 6'5+ and around 230+ in shape wth 80+ reaches its a factor. many of the old tme top hws were around just 6 feet and 200 pounds or less presumably w/o drainng weght. today there are lhws around that naturally but drain to make the limit. but do we act as though lhws wouldnt be at a dsadvantage vs hws?

Ambling Alp II wrote: ↑23 Mar 2018, 16:28 Yes he is heavier than most of the old time heavyweights. But he is smaller than most of the current one. If weight is all that, then he should not be beating fighters bigger than himself. Yet he does it over and over. I'm sure his reach helps. But it's mostly because he is simply better than these bigger guys he is fighting. The needle on the scale doesn't help you once the bell rings.
jamamb ask why Wilder gets singled out. Well, he is about the only heavyweight around who doesn't way ton. It has to be more than a coincidence that he has done so well.

Weight isn't "all that" .... Weight is a significant factor, but not the only factor... You're singling out Roy Jones, one of the greatest and most skilled boxers in History vs John Ruiz, one of the worst and least skilled Heavyweight Champions... Jones overwhelming margin of skill overcame Ruiz's size margin... Roy weighed 193 and wasn't interested in fighting Lennox Lewis... That was a tremendous money fight but he would have gotten killed... Lewis easily beat David Tua who knocked John Ruiz out in 19 seconds... Ruiz is more fat than big anyway... His first couple fights he weighed 184 and 183...

Wilder gave up poundage to overweight Luis Ortiz... Ortiz is 39 this month so he was giving up significant age to Wilder... Ortiz also has a serious health issue: high blood pressure - which isn't too unusual for a middle aged man.. I believe those factors offset his size advantage.. He came very close to winning but lacked the youthful speed.

Joshua and Wilder are going to fight... Wilder has advantages of height and reach... But Joshua will run Wilder over with his size and strength advantage -- not quite as badly as Liston smashed Patterson cuz Wilder is bigger than Liston.

What is strange is weight differences and size is often bought up when it comes to smaller guys moving up from the lighter weights to fight bigger opponents, sometimes with them only putting on a few pounds to move up a division. Yet when it comes to the HWs some people argue size and weight isn’t really an issue, just ability. If Floyd Mayweather challenged GGG a few years ago I'm sure his size (or lack of it) would be a topic for discussion and a reason many would back GGG to win.

There is plenty of money to be made at heavyweight. If guys at cruiserweight and light heavyweight thought they could compete at heavyweight I expect they would move up. David Haye and Tomasz Adamek both tried in recent years and had some success but failed at the top level.

I think Vitali may be better defensively than prior giants, his durability also seems to be a major advantage relative to guys like Buddy Baer, Simon, etc.

Cojimar 1946 wrote: ↑24 Mar 2018, 03:10 There is plenty of money to be made at heavyweight. If guys at cruiserweight and light heavyweight thought they could compete at heavyweight I expect they would move up. David Haye and Tomasz Adamek both tried in recent years and had some success but failed at the top level.

Right... Every Cruiserweight would love the money Anthony Joshua makes... But it's stretch for any of them to beat him.