Why Has Scotland Never Had a Heavyweight?

It's to do with the genetic stock of the working class/poor. England and Wales have a greater history of immigration than Scotland so the working classes of England and Wales have (for want of a more politically correct expression) benefited from waves of out breeding compared to Scotland. You only have to look at the names of the best boxers to know that the Scottish boxers are still ethnically Scottish where as England and Welsh poorer communities are ethnically more multicultural.

Scotland produces big men but not ones who train from children that grow into heavyweight sized boxers. You tend to find the biggest boxers take to the sport later and its the lifelong boxers that make the best fighters. Often the fighters of the smallest weights have bigger brothers who never took up boxing.

For some reason other country's produce heavyweights who have trained as boxers all their lives that come from poor backgrounds. Scotland is not one of them.

 

Ama and pro are totally different games, and he came back to England to take up a pro career.

But if its about Celts, and Anglo's fair enough.

 

The Irish provide the greatest physical breeding stock on this or any planet!

We are a breed of height, intelligence, good looks, sobriety and are fairly hairless, to boot. It's more a wonder why the entire top ten of every division isn't filled with O'Brien's and O'Shaughnessy's.

 

But unlike the Irish that settled in America the Irish that settled in Scottland grew no bigger and bred with as small or smaller people as they left behind in Ireland.

Who is to say the poorest Irish were genetically any bigger than the poorest Scottish?

At the end of the day the best fighters are the ones that live closest to the best boxing gyms. If the best boxing gyms are where the smallest people live the best boxers the gym will produce will be small fighters.

 

A few points. Ireland like Scotland has had little immigration(until say 10 years ago) so that hits that argument. Also the average height of an Irishman is about 5-8 also. The "big Scots just don't box" seems the kindest answer, either that or they cannot?

 

A good question and one to which I do not have a ready answer.

 

Yes, it's weird. Farnan, Lees, Slavin, Jackson, Goddard, Fitz, Dooley, O'Donnell, Hall, Doherty, Felix, Squires, Lang, Laing, Creedon to mame just a few off the top of my head and then ...Squat. Some of these guys were middleweights or L/Heavies and some were born outside Australia/ NZ but from that to nothing? incredible!

 

Reading this, i dont think ive ever thought so many ******s could group together and use a PC...

on about poverty, genetics and breeding stock? Really?

It's just culture, football only really got as far north as aberdeen until the last 20 years, same as rugby. Up north its all shinty and they're all mental. aberdeen only has 1 football club, hardly any compared to the populated areas further south, that's hardly any per head. yet per head the scots are more fenatical about football than any other nation in europe. attendances outstrip every other nation by population.

Its just interests and boxing isn't that high on the list.

Oz has aussie rules as well as cricket and rugby, most other sports suffer. New zealand just has rugby.

couple that with a lack of boxing gyms outside of glasgow and edinburgh and its no wonder to me theres been hardly any. Gary Cornish is the first in years and he's fighting out of inverness under gilmore struggling to find sparring partners, he does it part time and came to it late yet is still 16 wins from 16. he has loads to learn and heres hoping the commonwealth games sparks something in our nation...

its purely a lack of interest. Idiots!

 

I think there is probably some validity in some points that have been made, specially genetics.
Most of Scotland's best fighters have been smaller men and that's a fact. Most of the great fighters from Mexico and other South American countries have been from the smaller weights as has Asia.
America has had more success with big men and England is having more success more recently with big men with immigrant forefathers.

 

Jesus I’m being chastised for making a typo while ranting, please forgive me!

to state that the Scots as a nation have more poverty than the rest of the UK is completely unfounded and the actual opposite is true. Currently scots have less unemployment and provide more cash per head than any other area of the UK outside London due to the Oil and Gas sector.

The Scottish health survey in 2008 has the average height in Scotland in men at 1.78m and the English survey in 2010 shows the same at 1.77m.

if you are wondering why our better fighters have been predominantly smaller, my best guess would be that it is a nation of scrappers. We call it little big man syndrome… little guys picking fights with the biggest guy they can find while drunk. Very common in the cities.

Back when I played rugby, it was always the little ones you watched out for as they always started everything. Being 6’3” and 18 stone, I would generally be a target. Its just a culture thing. Scottish bigger guys just don’t normally go in for boxing. I never did even though I was always ok at it (fighting I mean) having been beaten up constantly as a kid by older brothers, who are all bigger than me may I add.

My family are all huge, being from Shetland, you could argue it’s a Scandinavian help but Shetland has been part of Scotland for nearly a thousand years.

 

nutrition IS a fact though, and especially in times of extreme poverty (more so past times), which Scotland (and other places), was famous for...

malnourished people were / are smaller. that and population, and only two major cities to go to or come from diminished numbers even further, and the people you were getting were of the less fortunate ilk, ie small.

interestingly I was watching QI last night and they spoke of how the Japanese people, genetically & historically small, well their size had grown tremendously in just over a decade or so by the introduction to 'beef' in their diets. so not only is diet a factor among peoples everywhere, but likewise food additives and hormones in the food.

the same is true in the opposite... WHY are we no longer producing normal size people / HWs, but rather GIANTS, in essence S-HWS?

 

I don't buy the Scottish are the most fanatical football supporters in Europe line.

They might be as far as Celtic and Rangers are concerned, but that is all. Where I live there is a bar owned by a Rangers " fanatic " with its own supporters club. The consensus there is " Will there still be an SPL by the time Rangers get back up there?"

This is apparently due to the fact that the other clubs in the SPL need the visits by both Rangers and Celtic massive followings to stay afloat.

At the moment they are only getting the Celtic fans visits.