Does the fact that Jack Johnson era fighters were drying out exclude them from h2h?

Nahant man.

 

I think that the drying out went a little bit earlier. Jeffries seems to have done it for his first couple of title fights, but seems to have given up on it later, and felt much better for it.

 

I think by drying out these guys were basically getting to an optimal weight for them. People today say "why should a heavyweight come down in weight if he doesnt have to make weight." Well, back in those days those guys actually believed in and understood the principle of getting in shape for a fight even if you didnt need to make a certain low weight. Its why they actually looked in shape and didnt look like obese fat asses. I dont think they were actually killing themselves like Gatti or someone like that to make a ridiculously artificially low weight by cutting a significant portion of their natural body weight.

Johnson may have been "drying out" in '04 but what does that mean and are we really adhering to the belief that '04 was Johnson's prime anyway? I think most would agree that he was prime around the time he won the title which was several years later. He looked like a statue in those fights and you can clearly see later on that when he actually came in at whatever he wanted and didnt train as hard he carried more flab.

 

I couldn't say because I've no way of knowing how dehydrated they were.

 

How do you know it was bad? What does it mean for him to "dry out" in the vernacular of the times. Was he totally dehydrating himself? Or was he not drinking water in favor other liquids (pure water isnt the only source of hydration. For instance some fighters trained on ale as it was thought to make them stronger)? To what end? What was the effect? Can we show it affected his performances? Were his opponents doing the same thing (thus leveling the playing field)? To make a blatant statement like "fighters were drying out" without really understanding what that meant, to what extent, etc. and then trying to extrapolate from that the they had A. placed themselves at a disadvantage in their own time, or B. that it had negatively effected their performances. Is a big big jump.

 

I don't know what Jeffries liquid intake was but he ate very sparingly for his frame and remarked in articles how little food an athlete needed.Maybe it was those years of self denial that made him balloon up once he was retired? Others wiill have to give their input on the dehydration issue.
We have this image of Johnson being dissipated and overweight ,and in later years he was , but as Adam states in his book, when younger Johnson was a very diligent trainer.

 

Ray Arcel trained Charley Phil ********* for his title shot, ********* was seriously overweight prior to the fight Arcel slept in the same room measured out his food and followed him to the bathroom when ********* took a glass of water Arcel made him spit it out,he said," I watched his adam's apple to make sure he didnt swallow". Yet ********* won the title.

 

I'm not disputing your stance , just how can we possibly quantify how much it affected the old timers.

 

Dehydrated is vastly different than dried out. Dehydrated is a medical term like decapitated so I don't think that these guys were dehydrated. If they ate food like steak or had soup than they had a reasonable amount of fluid, if not an optimal amount. There's that old story about someone cutting up oranges to eat between rounds and Langford telling him he wouldn't need them.


"Some, but not all, exercise is going to be affected by being hydrated or dehydrated. Athletes involved in shorter anaerobic exercises have less physiologic changes occurring and therefore can experience an increase in performance due to less body mass by being slightly hypohydrated. Longer, more aerobic exercises use more total body water and therefore need to be replenished during exercise. Replenishing the water stores will influence several factors and keep the athlete hydrated enough to perform at his or her best capabilities."

http://www.kon.org/urc/v10/athletic-training/decker.html