BoxRec

A while back, Ezzard started a thread about heavyweights and how many KOs heavyweights had against top heavyweights who were heavier than them. He threw out fights if there was only a 1 pound weight difference.
This got me to thinking, how big of an advantage is it to be heavier? We often talk about weight advantages when discussing heavyweights; especially in fantasy head to head matchups and when rating them.

So I thought I would do a little research. I looked at the weights of each fighter in every heavyweight title fight from 1892(Sullivan-Corbett) to 1992. I wanted to see how much more often the heavier fighter won.
There are of course grey areas. For example I counted all the WBC, WBA, and IBF title fights from 1978-1992.
There were a few draws, no-decisions, that threw out. Like Ezzard, I also threw out fights where the fighters were within a pound.

Anyway, here are the results:

The heavier fighter won 84 times.
The lighter fighter won...... 84 times.

That's right, it's an exact tie. The lighter heavyweight won exactly the same amount of times as the heavier man did!

That is extraordinary. Statistically, in heavyweight title fights, there was no advantage to being the bigger man; at least the heavier man.

Thought this would be very interesting to discuss.

Real interesting well done.

I'd be interested to see the stats from 92 onward, I would guess the discrepancies in weight got a lot bigger after that when the likes of Bowe, Lewis, Ibeabuchi, arrived on the scene. Be interesting to see how it effected the win/loss ratio.

I think the weight difference is most significant when the lighter or heavier fighter can use their weight to their advantage...i.e lighter being faster...heavier being stronger. An example is where Ali had an easier time with the big guys like Foreman but struggled with the smaller faster guys...

I think it really depends on a lot of factors. Weight is one factor but weve all seen a big unskilled behemoth get slaughtered by a good smaller man. Another factor is that giants were so rare in yesteryear that few trainers knew how to effectively train them. Emmanuel Steward was so successful with Lennox Lewis (who was pretty clumsy early on) because he knew how to train those tall lanky guys. If you look at two fighters who are evenly matched in terms of skill and experience and give one a significant advantage in weight then odds are the guy who weighs more is going to win. It becomes a big advantage at that point. Its more significant in the lower weight classes where fighters down through history have negotiated hard on the matter of weight in order to gain an advantage. When I interviewed Leon Thompson, Tony Zales old sparring partner, he spoke at length about this and said that was the where half the fight was fought. If you could get a guy to come in at a weight that he wasnt comfortable at you could gain a significant advantage both physically and pyschologically. Of course with heavyweights its different because theoretically they get to come into the fight at their best weight every time.

Ambling Alp II wrote:Anyway, here are the results:

The heavier fighter won 84 times.
The lighter fighter won...... 84 times.

That's right, it's an exact tie. The lighter heavyweight won exactly the same amount of times as the heavier man did!

That is extraordinary. Statistically, in heavyweight title fights, there was no advantage to being the bigger man; at least the heavier man.

Well, it depends on the cause of being heavier. Part of those 84 fighters were heavier because they were bigger (higher, and/or more muscular). But good part of them was just overweight. I think if we exclude the second part, being heavier would be still some advantage.

Ambling Alp II wrote:Anyway, here are the results:

The heavier fighter won 84 times.
The lighter fighter won...... 84 times.

That's right, it's an exact tie. The lighter heavyweight won exactly the same amount of times as the heavier man did!

That is extraordinary. Statistically, in heavyweight title fights, there was no advantage to being the bigger man; at least the heavier man.

Well, it depends on the cause of being heavier. Part of those 84 fighters were heavier because they were bigger (higher, and/or more muscular). But good part of them was just overweight. I think if we exclude the second part, being heavier would be still some advantage.

My father told me some things about weight differences concerning some fighters. Though each and every fighter has his own story to tell and there is no set possibilties here, the onus of many fighters is going up in weight. My father said that with many fighters-going up in weight to fight in a higher weight class can be extremely difficult to get used to, especially if said fighter had fought within a certain weight class most of his career. For example he gave me LaMotta going up to fight Nardico at Lt-Heavy, (and though age had some thing to do with it also) was not to be. Nardico two fights with my father going from Lt-Heavy to fight heavywt proved to be a major hurdle that he could not cross and self-admitted that he should have never considered the thought afterwards. (He was looking for a title shot vs, Marciano at the time-1954).

If a fighter was a natural heavy- he could handle bigger men by staying where he was at wt. wise. Such as my father taking on Charlie Powell. Norkus 194 vs Powell 216 in 1954. My father also gave me an example of the a fighter who crossed many weights in his career eventually claiming the Lt-Heavy crown- Willie Pastrano.
Willie Pastrano "grew" up from a young man into a natural Lt Heavy finding success at many wt classes, but he naturally grew into those weights, he didnt have to push the so-called "envelopes" along the way. He also beat good heavywts in their time also, such as Pat MCMurtry,Charlie Norkus while weighing as a heavywt., but his skills were good enough to carry him . Though you will see many fighters in history winning fights at heavier weights, please consider the age difference of the opponent and whether he is at the end of his rope. Going up in weight is the toughest thing a fighter faces if he wants to rise up out of his "natural" weight class- but for many it may mean a bigger pay date, so many got to go try the route.
Gaining those few extra pounds on a fighter can add a ton of exhaustion on.

I want to add that I am talking about an era that had 8 divisions and just 5-9 lbs separating them. Today with so many fighters topping the 215 lb range and 10 lbs dont make a difference because of height, things are different. But put 5 lbs on Mayweather or Canelo or Pac-man at his prime and do you think they can go as fast as they can ? Maybe.

gregor wrote:

Ambling Alp II wrote:Anyway, here are the results:

The heavier fighter won 84 times.
The lighter fighter won...... 84 times.

That's right, it's an exact tie. The lighter heavyweight won exactly the same amount of times as the heavier man did!

That is extraordinary. Statistically, in heavyweight title fights, there was no advantage to being the bigger man; at least the heavier man.

Well, it depends on the cause of being heavier. Part of those 84 fighters were heavier because they were bigger (higher, and/or more muscular). But good part of them was just overweight. I think if we exclude the second part, being heavier would be still some advantage.

That seems to make sense. I looked up the fights where the heavier fighter seemed to me to be way out of shape. I found 10 of them, and the lighter man won 8 and lost only 2.

So it does seem that it matters quite a bit what condition the heavier fighter is in (ie fat or muscular.)

Still, if you throw those 10 fights out, the bigger man still only has an advantage of 82-76; that's still pretty close.
It really is interesting that the smaller has historically done so well. Perhaps we have overrating power and taking punishment and underrating other areas where the smaller man often has the edge.

I just don't think we can automatically think the bigger heavyweight would have the advantage if fantasy matchups or when rating heavyweights. Maybe we need to be looking more at how well an individual heavyweight takes advantage of his advantages and minimizes his disadvantages.

I've commented on this topic numerous times, but I'll just add a few points

-Weight's place in punching power gets heavily over-rated. Yes it plays a role, but speed/'snap,' punching technique/torque of the body, angles, and timing also play crucial parts to punching effectiveness. A 190 lb fighter can punch much harder than a 240 lber fighter, or a 300 lb fighter.

-VERY few men are, in tip top boxing shape, over 220 lbs. George Foreman was a colossal man and in top shape was in the 220-225 range. The Klitschkos and Lennox Lewis, at 6'6 and 6'7, are among the few who in top shape are in the 240s (high 230s/low 240s for Wladimir). In the modern era you've had lots of guys 5'11 to 6'2 weighing in the 220s and above, and they are almost all overweight despite sometimes looking "solid" . . they are carrying too much mass for their frames and it shows in their stamina, speed, and work-rate. And that extra weight would only be a negative vs guys their size or larger who weighed less but were in fighting condition. For example, Chagaev generally weighed 25 lbs more than Frazier, but is not any bigger, and in a fight vs Joe Ruslan would've been steamrolled by an opponent who was just as strong but could fight faster and longer.

Ambling Alp II wrote:A while back, Ezzard started a thread about heavyweights and how many KOs heavyweights had against top heavyweights who were heavier than them. He threw out fights if there was only a 1 pound weight difference.
This got me to thinking, how big of an advantage is it to be heavier? We often talk about weight advantages when discussing heavyweights; especially in fantasy head to head matchups and when rating them.

So I thought I would do a little research. I looked at the weights of each fighter in every heavyweight title fight from 1892(Sullivan-Corbett) to 1992. I wanted to see how much more often the heavier fighter won.
There are of course grey areas. For example I counted all the WBC, WBA, and IBF title fights from 1978-1992.
There were a few draws, no-decisions, that threw out. Like Ezzard, I also threw out fights where the fighters were within a pound.

Anyway, here are the results:

The heavier fighter won 84 times.
The lighter fighter won...... 84 times.

That's right, it's an exact tie. The lighter heavyweight won exactly the same amount of times as the heavier man did!

That is extraordinary. Statistically, in heavyweight title fights, there was no advantage to being the bigger man; at least the heavier man.

Thought this would be very interesting to discuss.

Interesting, but these findings don't strongly suggest that being heavier is a non-existent or insignificant advantage. Perhaps the bigger fighters would've done much worse had they been the same weight as or heavier than their opponents; it may be that they were markedly inferior pound-for-pound but still managed a 50/50 record due to their size.

I'd like to know what the weight differences were for these bouts. If one fighter is 10 or fewer pounds heavier than their opponent, perhaps the impact of such a discrepancy isn't comparable to that of a 30 pound discrepancy. If your sample is made up of a large number of the former cases, it may not speak that much to the effects of large disparities, such as that between a 200 pound fighter and 240 pound opponent. The same also applies to bouts in which larger fighters won; some weight advantages may have been too small to have an impact, so that heavier fighters prevailing in some of these cases shouldn't be considered evidence that being relatively heavy is advantageous.

I'd also like to know why you stopped counting at 1992, and I'm curious about how the numbers would be different if you included each major HW title bout from that point. I suspect the numbers would favor larger men given the dominance of Lewis and the Klitschkos.

It really is interesting that the smaller has historically done so well. Perhaps we have overrating power and taking punishment and underrating other areas where the smaller man often has the edge.

I just don't think we can automatically think the bigger heavyweight would have the advantage if fantasy matchups or when rating heavyweights. Maybe we need to be looking more at how well an individual heavyweight takes advantage of his advantages and minimizes his disadvantages.

Perhaps being smaller offers important advantages, but it may also be that there is a relatively shallow talent pool of heavyweights who are often significantly heavier than their opponents, as past a point there is a negative correlation between how size and commonality of that size. In this case, the success of the smaller men may not be linked to their size per se, but to abilities unaffected by size that a much smaller number of big heavyweights possess.

It would be inane to give the heavier fighter an advantage in a head-to-head without considering other factors, but it's reasonable to believe that weight and size more generally could be important factors in certain cases given the other fighter qualities involved.

dempseyfire wrote:The Klitschkos and Lennox Lewis, at 6'6 and 6'7, are among the few who in top shape are in the 240s (high 230s/low 240s for Wladimir).

And crucially fighting at a pace has been a nightmare for all three of them. They are at their best when fighting a fellow 230/40lb lump.

crusader wrote:I'd also like to know why you stopped counting at 1992, and I'm curious about how the numbers would be different if you included each major HW title bout from that point. I suspect the numbers would favor larger men given the dominance of Lewis and the Klitschkos.

Actually, Wlad was lighter than good number of his opponents. He started fighting at 220-225 and was probably lighter in at least 24 fights. Taking into account that sometimes neither his weight, nor his opponents' were given, and adding the couple of fights were they had the same weights (within one pound limit), I do not think that counting his fights would change it dramatically.

BTW it also shows how often "heavier" fighter means just the fat one... Wlad had met only a couple of fighters that were around his height or bigger (Wach, McCline, Thompson x2, Austin... possibly missed one or two), but when it comes to weight it is closer to 50-50

gregor wrote:

crusader wrote:I'd also like to know why you stopped counting at 1992, and I'm curious about how the numbers would be different if you included each major HW title bout from that point. I suspect the numbers would favor larger men given the dominance of Lewis and the Klitschkos.

Actually, Wlad was lighter than good number of his opponents. He started fighting at 220-225 and was probably lighter in at least 24 fights. Taking into account that sometimes neither his weight, nor his opponents' were given, and adding the couple of fights were they had the same weights (within one pound limit), I do not think that counting his fights would change it dramatically.

BTW it also shows how often "heavier" fighter means just the fat one... Wlad had met only a couple of fighters that were around his height or bigger (Wach, McCline, Thompson x2, Austin... possibly missed one or two), but when it comes to weight it is closer to 50-50

The first post explicitly states that only world title fights were counted, so much of Wlad's early career isn't relevant. According to BoxRec, and excluding draws and bouts in which there wasn't more than a pound difference, Wlad's record depicts a 14-7 boost for larger men, Vitali's record depicts a 11-4 boost for larger men, and Lewis's record depicts a 10-5 boost for larger men. In all, and accounting for the fight (Lewis-Klit) common to a pair of records, inclusion of these fighters leads to a 35-15 boost for heavier boxers.

For their success to be balanced out, the other title bouts must've featured a significant edge for smaller men; maybe that occurred, maybe it didn't, but I think there's a good chance the heavier side comes out on top if bouts from after 1992 are considered.

Thought I would address some comments:
Why did I stop at 1992? I only wanted to count title fights because they are (at least usually) the most important. I wanted to be true to the history of the sport. If I counted every WBS title fight, there would way too much emphasis on modern fights. Until the late 1970s, there was usually only one champion, only two until the mid 1980s.
It also lead to other problems if you count all the paper titles. When do I start counting the WBO? It was not considered much until HBO told us sheep to start paying attention to that title.
If I count every WBS title, should I count the Black Heavyweight title fights in the late 1880s to 1930s? McVey, Langford, Jeannette, Wills etc. were better fighters than some of the WBS titleholders. Should I count Lee Savold? He probably had as much support as some of the WBS titleholders. I did not count any of that.

And to be honest, the thought of looking up every WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO heavyweight title fight from 1993-2013 is pretty depressing.

I wanted to start with 1892 (Sullivan-Corbett). I though 100 years was a good place to stop. There were 168 fights to consider. That's enough to give you at least a rough idea.

As far as how close were the results were if there was say only a 10 pound difference as opposed to a 40 pound difference, I would have to go back and look it all up. I think I will do that some day. Maybe something like the win loss record of the heavier man with a 10 pound or less weight advantage, then 10-20, and 20 and more. Something like that.

I am just amazed that this ended in an exact tie. I always had pretty much agreed with dempseyfire and others that the weight "advantage" could be deceiving. However, I would have thought it had to count for something. If nothing else, I would have thought when all else is about even in regards to skill, the bigger man would win. Thus, it would follow that the bigger man should win more half the time, since often the bigger man is also the more skillful fighter.

I do think we need to consider some things that seldom seem to be considered. For example, there must be some advantages of being smaller that are very underrated.

Ambling Alp II wrote:A while back, Ezzard started a thread about heavyweights and how many KOs heavyweights had against top heavyweights who were heavier than them. He threw out fights if there was only a 1 pound weight difference.
This got me to thinking, how big of an advantage is it to be heavier? We often talk about weight advantages when discussing heavyweights; especially in fantasy head to head matchups and when rating them.

So I thought I would do a little research. I looked at the weights of each fighter in every heavyweight title fight from 1892(Sullivan-Corbett) to 1992. I wanted to see how much more often the heavier fighter won.
There are of course grey areas. For example I counted all the WBC, WBA, and IBF title fights from 1978-1992.
There were a few draws, no-decisions, that threw out. Like Ezzard, I also threw out fights where the fighters were within a pound.

Anyway, here are the results:

The heavier fighter won 84 times.
The lighter fighter won...... 84 times.

That's right, it's an exact tie. The lighter heavyweight won exactly the same amount of times as the heavier man did!

That is extraordinary. Statistically, in heavyweight title fights, there was no advantage to being the bigger man; at least the heavier man.

Thought this would be very interesting to discuss.

Interesting, I think it might be because when you have two heavyweights who are pretty well matched in every other respect, its often the faster one who will come out on top rather than the bigger one. I think this is one of the problems of a lot of todays heavies, they are bigger but so much slower too. If you look at the 70s/80s even 90s and then compare to today its quite astonishing how much slower the average heavyweight is today... outside of the Klitschkos.

crusader wrote:

gregor wrote:

crusader wrote:I'd also like to know why you stopped counting at 1992, and I'm curious about how the numbers would be different if you included each major HW title bout from that point. I suspect the numbers would favor larger men given the dominance of Lewis and the Klitschkos.

Actually, Wlad was lighter than good number of his opponents. He started fighting at 220-225 and was probably lighter in at least 24 fights. Taking into account that sometimes neither his weight, nor his opponents' were given, and adding the couple of fights were they had the same weights (within one pound limit), I do not think that counting his fights would change it dramatically.

BTW it also shows how often "heavier" fighter means just the fat one... Wlad had met only a couple of fighters that were around his height or bigger (Wach, McCline, Thompson x2, Austin... possibly missed one or two), but when it comes to weight it is closer to 50-50

The first post explicitly states that only world title fights were counted, so much of Wlad's early career isn't relevant. According to BoxRec, and excluding draws and bouts in which there wasn't more than a pound difference, Wlad's record depicts a 14-7 boost for larger men, Vitali's record depicts a 11-4 boost for larger men, and Lewis's record depicts a 10-5 boost for larger men. In all, and accounting for the fight (Lewis-Klit) common to a pair of records, inclusion of these fighters leads to a 35-15 boost for heavier boxers.

For their success to be balanced out, the other title bouts must've featured a significant edge for smaller men; maybe that occurred, maybe it didn't, but I think there's a good chance the heavier side comes out on top if bouts from after 1992 are considered.

Those would be more than off-set by the other title bouts post-1992 of Holyfield, Moorer, Byrd, Ruiz, Chagaev etc.

The fighters you mention fought 28 bouts post-1992 meeting the selection criteria used, with an 18-10 edge for lighter men. Accounting for the bouts included in the 35-15 tally above, the edge for lighter men when considering bouts involving the fighters you listed goes to 17-6, bringing 35-15 to 41-32 for heavier men.

You'll need the 'etc.' to overcome the gap above, but that also means that you'll have to consider the 'etc.' of Lewis, Vitali, Wlad, etc. There may be an edge for smaller men or larger men, but either way it would be interesting to see if including the past 20 years or so changes the findings; if people are using the current findings to support a certain position, they may be less able to do so when more bouts are considered.

As mentioned though, I think these findings are quite limited in their ability to show that being heavier is an advantage or not. They say very little about how the bouts would've unfolded had the weight disparities been different.

crusader wrote:The fighters you mention fought 28 bouts post-1992 meeting the selection criteria used, with an 18-10 edge for lighter men. Accounting for the bouts included in the 35-15 tally above, the edge for lighter men when considering bouts involving the fighters you listed goes to 17-6, bringing 35-15 to 41-32 for heavier men.

You'll need the 'etc.' to overcome the gap above, but that also means that you'll have to consider the 'etc.' of Lewis, Vitali, Wlad, etc. There may be an edge for smaller men or larger men, but either way it would be interesting to see if including the past 20 years or so changes the findings; if people are using the current findings to support a certain position, they may be less able to do so when more bouts are considered.

As mentioned though, I think these findings are quite limited in their ability to show that being heavier is an advantage or not. They say very little about how the bouts would've unfolded had the weight disparities been different.

Well, I think aggregating this is fun but rather meaningless. Klitschko beating up a big bum like Wach isn't really proving that smaller beats larger, nor is Klitschko beating on a shot Mormeck the opposite standpoint.

Right, just as Holyfield beating up larger men doesn't suggest that being heavier isn't an advantage.

fatcity69 wrote:

Ambling Alp II wrote:A while back, Ezzard started a thread about heavyweights and how many KOs heavyweights had against top heavyweights who were heavier than them. He threw out fights if there was only a 1 pound weight difference.
This got me to thinking, how big of an advantage is it to be heavier? We often talk about weight advantages when discussing heavyweights; especially in fantasy head to head matchups and when rating them.

So I thought I would do a little research. I looked at the weights of each fighter in every heavyweight title fight from 1892(Sullivan-Corbett) to 1992. I wanted to see how much more often the heavier fighter won.
There are of course grey areas. For example I counted all the WBC, WBA, and IBF title fights from 1978-1992.
There were a few draws, no-decisions, that threw out. Like Ezzard, I also threw out fights where the fighters were within a pound.

Anyway, here are the results:

The heavier fighter won 84 times.
The lighter fighter won...... 84 times.

That's right, it's an exact tie. The lighter heavyweight won exactly the same amount of times as the heavier man did!

That is extraordinary. Statistically, in heavyweight title fights, there was no advantage to being the bigger man; at least the heavier man.

Thought this would be very interesting to discuss.

Interesting, I think it might be because when you have two heavyweights who are pretty well matched in every other respect, its often the faster one who will come out on top rather than the bigger one. I think this is one of the problems of a lot of todays heavies, they are bigger but so much slower too. If you look at the 70s/80s even 90s and then compare to today its quite astonishing how much slower the average heavyweight is today... outside of the Klitschkos.

How do we know the fighters involved in the bouts counted were well-matched excluding size? If the tally came out to 84-84 and all was equal aside from weight, it would be evidence that being heavier isn't an advantage.

However, there is no control for disparities in ability or a strong way to determine the range of advantages stemming from being relatively light or heavy, so we cannot conclude that being heavier didn't allow the relatively large men to do better than they would've otherwise.

Judging how many fights were well matched would have to be a matter of opinion. Sometimes the bigger man had more ability and would have beaten the smaller man without a size advantage. How often is arguable.

If there was not many fights to use, you could not make any reasonable conclusions. If you only counted a small period of time, it could very deceiving.

However we are talking about 168 fights. That is enough to tell you something. We are talking about 100 years of boxing which includes many different eras.

You can reasonably conclude that weight advantage by itself is not a huge advantage.

Ambling Alp II wrote:Judging how many fights were well matched would have to be a matter of opinion. Sometimes the bigger man had more ability and would have beaten the smaller man without a size advantage. How often is arguable.

If there was not many fights to use, you could not make any reasonable conclusions. If you only counted a small period of time, it could very deceiving.

However we are talking about 168 fights. That is enough to tell you something. We are talking about 100 years of boxing which includes many different eras.

You can reasonably conclude that weight advantage by itself is not a huge advantage.

You cannot conclude that weight isn't an important advantage among a range of advantages one may have.

Your findings don't control for various factors apart from weight, and therefore they tell us very little about how weight differences impact bouts. For example, super heavyweights who usually weigh more than their opponents may tend to lose because they're relatively limited in ability, and such limitations may stem simply from there being few boxers that size and thus less talent; they may also tend to win largely because they are bigger, which may erroneously be conflated with winning due to their abilities. More generally, the smaller men as a whole may be different from the larger men as a whole in a way that obfuscates the advantages of being heavier; perhaps many weight disparities stem from one fighter being overweight, which may indicate a lack of dedication and stamina that largely explain defeats to opponents who weigh less because they are in better shape. This could be seen as supporting the idea that weight isn't an advantage, but it may also be that weighing more isn't an advantage only when the discrepancy isn't a product of the larger man being out of shape.

I appreciate your effort, but there are too many methodological holes in it for us to conclude that being heavier generally isn't an important advantage. Moreover, it fails to address nuances such as how big the discrepancy must be for the larger man to benefit, whether the discrepancy must be of a certain type (e.g. flab vs being naturally larger), and so forth.

In one of my later posts I did take out fights where the heavier man was in my opinion out of shape. (All I can do is base this on opinion.) Even after throwing those fights out, there still is is only a slight advantage for the heavier fighter.

I will some time and go through and check the results when the bigger man had a small weight advantage, a moderate weight advantage, and large weight advantage. Maybe there will be a stage where the heavier man is at a big advantage. I really don't know how that will shake out.

Of course you can nitpick any kind of study. However, I still maintain that given the decent sample size, the length of time this covers, and the importance of the bouts that the results of this is worthwhile information.

Ambling Alp II wrote:In one of my later posts I did take out fights where the heavier man was in my opinion out of shape. (All I can do is base this on opinion.) Even after throwing those fights out, there still is is only a slight advantage for the heavier fighter.

I will some time and go through and check the results when the bigger man had a small weight advantage, a moderate weight advantage, and large weight advantage. Maybe there will be a stage where the heavier man is at a big advantage. I really don't know how that will shake out.

Of course you can nitpick any kind of study. However, I still maintain that given the decent sample size, the length of time this covers, and the importance of the bouts that the results of this is worthwhile information.

Most studies are more strictly controlled than this is. Again, I appreciate the effort, but there are too many factors that interfere with it's ability to show that being heavier isn't an advantage.

Guess we will have to agree to disagree.