Did the change from 15 rounds to 12 rounds usher in the era of super-heavyweights?

No, better nutrition heralded the era of bigger Heavyweights.

 

No, because the super-heavyweight is largely a myth in my opinion. Only four fighters in the past 20 years have had great size and skills to match. (Bowe, Lewis, and the K brothers.)

They're not exactly falling out of trees.

If your definition of a super heavyweight is just a big hulking lug, then that's something else entirely.

 

A change of pace as well as a change in gloves had as much to do with the heralding of big super heavyweights as a cut in rounds. Taller, slower men who naturaly would have found it tough going against smaller, fast guys who could make more impression with less punches found that smaller guys were easier to catch once they bulked up and had to work even harder to make an impression with bigger gloves on as well. It was like a handicap that suited the longer, naturaly heavy guys.

Better nutrition? I would call it an experimental period where the nutritional "advances" in other sports began to be explored in heavyweight boxing but it only suited the taller fighters. It encumbered everyone else generally.

 

Largely, the already big, slow guy wanted to get bigger to emphasize his advantage and the faster, athletic guy simply became slower once he refused to give away too much weight against the bigger man.

 

No, the average weight of heavyweight fights has been going up since the 1950s anyway...when the weight was something around 190lbs, a decade later it was approx 205, then in 1970s it was up to 215, then 220 by the 1980s, around the time the 12 round limit was done any with. After that it went up to nearly 230 by the 90s and more. It will never go down much again in reality; maybe 220 at the lowest, but nothing close to 200 ever again.

 

In the case of heavyweights I wonder if it was a case of worse nutrition than better. Some of the more recent ones look as if they've been brought up on a diet of fast food.

 

Look at Tua v Ustinov :conf

 

HGH maybe.

 

:deal

 

Funny thing is Look at how many KOs were recorded during title fights before the 220 era compared to the 220 plus era?

Joe Louis was knocking everyone out with 6oz gloves at 199lb. All shapes and sizes.

Gloves went up to 8oz in all title fights after the Marciano v Cokell fight then during the 1980s gloves went up to 10oz with attached thumbs. it just became harder and harder to stop fighters.

With almost 4oz extra padding than Joe Louis had it was harder to stop a fighter. Would Joe Louis have the same edge against giants with a 10oz glove? With smaller gloves there was a lot less room for error so it favoured the man with the sharpest, faster hands. Not so with bigger gloves.

Faster fighters landing more punches were less likely to end a fight early. Speed was only the advantage early in a fight or until both men tired to the extent that speed was often neutralised. A smaller man was left wrestling with a heavier man. The naturally more athletic fighters who previously traded on sharpness of punch just were not as effective or as accurate with bigger gloves. So they built themselves up to counter this, but once this started the taller men with the longer arms took over.

 

I've had to dispel this myth once today already.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRmOOWPTRBs

 

I think it was one factor in a number.

A lot of the superheavies would have come in lighter, had they had to go 15 rounds.

 

So essentially, all gloves from all areas are pretty much equal!

That is the one outcome I would never have anticipated in a million years!

Not in any hurry to take a bare-knuckle punch from John L now!

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I agree. There were big guys around 100 years ago. Many of Joe Louis' sparring partners were guys 6'4" 240+ pounds; they just weren't good enough to compete at the elite level. This whole idea that guys 6'4" 240+ pounds didn't come into existence until 1990 or so is absurd. Has the average sizes of people increased all that significantly over the last 100 years or so? If you take away performance-enhancing drugs, weightlifting, and steroids (and of course, the obesity epidemic), I think you'll find people are roughly the same size as they were in 1913, although I do know average heights for most parts of the population have increased somewhat, but not that much and not for all segments.