Ancient Greek Boxers an interesting thought.

Kleitomachos KO1 Joe Louis

 

Dioxippus of Athens is maybe the most famous Pankrationist, was so feared at Olympia that in one year no competitor dared even face him and he won by default, and famously he defeated Alexander's hardest soldier in single combat when armed only with a small club, the other dude had on armour and was carrying a sword, shield and spear.

 

Imagine heavyweight would be 180 lol when humans moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture the height of the average human went down from 5'9 to 5'4 by some estimates.


Still, I can imagine they were some nasty fighters. They might have a field day in modern boxing. 12 rounds with gloves on wouldn't seem like anything

 

most of the wraps look more like weapons than protection

 

There were no limits to the number of rounds they could fight. They would fight until someone was killed.

The average ancient Greek man was found to be 162-165cm, let's say 5'4, and weighed 60-65kg (average of 137lbs).

http://history.stackexchange.com/questions/17160/what-was-the-average-height-in-classical-greece


The average ancient Greek athlete was probably slightly taller at 5'6. Let's say then that because there were no weight classes and thus the smaller guys would have to go up against the big guys, there would be a heavy skew among the elite level, to a taller height, therefore something like 5'8, perhaps 5'9.

They had a protein heavy diet, but it should be known that they did fight until someone died. It's likely they didn't fight very often like an old timer obviously, but would do a lot of strongman-like lifting and thus they put on a certain amount of muscle but they also have around a 13% body fat because they had a heavy protein-based diet.

So ultimately, 500 years in, they were most probably around 5'9 and around 172lbs.

It's very much consistent with the way they looked in pictures/sculpture:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mharrsch/5612084/in/photostream/
http://yalebooksnetwork.org/yupblog/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2012/03/g_boxing_wrestling.jpeg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Thermae_boxer_Massimo_Inv1055.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/db/d8/53/dbd853a400ec020297abf4e2aca79baf.jpg

Now, as for their skills..they were boxing for 600 years. Over this time, this indicates a an evolution of skill...but was that really so?

 

He talks of this random dude 'Jerome Sanchez' on the greatest fighter ever. Jerome states it's the wrestler Milo of Croton.

A big methodological error has been made. In trying to calculate Milo's size, he takes the average of the modern greats of today who are undoubtedly pumped with PED's and the best of modern training.

However, what is known is that he was taller than the average ancient Greek man, without being a giant. This makes him around 5'8.
5'10 was considered a giant.
The average guy then was around 135lbs. This man was likely big, but he's not going to be Tyson-esque let alone Foreman-esque.

Milo was a beast though in terms of his abilities. The greatest Olympian ever, surely.

 

Utilized the Athens Roll for defense.

 

"There were no limits to the number of rounds they could fight. They would fight until someone was killed. "
Apparently return clauses were rare.....

 

fighting to the death would make loosing risky to your career.

 

You're talking about "Macho" Kleitomachos?

 

Minimum height for a Roman soldier in the 2nd century was 5'8" or about 1.75m.
Remains of 9th century Vikings in Lithuania averaged 5'10....very close to modern men or a little bigger. I bet Greeks weren't that much smaller. Middle to light hw.

Biggest issue in fighting an ancient Greek would be to avoid bending over.

 

For comparison the average height and weight of Union soldiers in the US Civil War was 5'6" and 160 pounds (middle weighf limit except for Cotto and Canelo.

 

Humans are anatomically the same as they have been for roughly two hundred thousand years. Weapons might have changed modern warfare, but hand to hand combat is going to be the same as it ever was with a few minor variables. Since boxing has been around in several cultures for thousands of years, I would be surprised if there weren't hundreds or thousands of boxers from the past who would be impressive on the modern world stage.