I don't know what their exact reaches were. But I don't necessarily think they had short arms for men of their height, as none of them were especially tall. I think Dwight Qawi was only like 5'8" or 5'9".
Nope, most of those guys do NOT have short arms for their height like Rocky did. It is just that the average boxer has a long reach & wingspan for their body. And the more bulky you are the shorter your arms look. The average human being has the old Davinci ideal of exactly equal to height. Google it, the only other answer you will find is-very occasionally-the avergae being very margimally more. Tyson's winspan was listed as 71", Frazier 73" (though his left arm did not straighten out very much). While Tyson was heavily muscled, his shoulder bone structure was not especially wide, Frazier less so. His arms were slightly long for his body. Just not for a boxer. The avergae NBA player is not less than 6' 7" with a 7' reach. You cannot use what a sport *tends* to select for in judging what is the average for a human being. Nor are those who do not possess great length necessarily not good or even ATGs: it is the Total Package.
Not sure I really buy Rocky 67" wingspan claim. He had short arms and all, but it seemed like an exaggerated gimmick. Do you really think him and Roberto Duran have an equal reach? Vitali Klitschko's 80" wingspan seems freakishly short for his height. But the man appears to not only be broad but have very long arms. Him and Lewis clearly were near equals in their match, and Lewis said he was bothered by his length. [url]http://bilder4.n-tv.de/img/incoming/origs3800531/3642731711-w1000-h960/lewis-klitschko.jpg[/url]
I guess it's perception. Johnson looks so tall compared to his contemporaries in most photos, but in reality he was 6 foot and one half an inch.
Zab Judah had a listed 72" wingspan, but his arms always looked very short. David Tua, Ricky Hatton, James Toney, Andrew Golota are a few others that just visiblly looked to have disproportioned short arms. I don't care what their actual measurements claim.
Reach is he most unreliable measurement of the tale of the tape. HBO said Vitali's reach measured from the pit of the arm to the end of the fist is 29.5", which is even longer than Lewis and 3" longer than his brothers. No other fighter has been recorded longer under their version of reach. As such, I think Vitali's listed 80" reach is understated...its a little longer, but the lower number can throw fighters off.