Then you have very little basis for calling him a natural 200lb fighter. Was that his walking around weight? Possibly. But that's a different matter entirely.
That's just absurd. Lewis can't beat Fitz with 4oz gloves but ko's him in 1 with 8 or 10's. Jesus H. What sort of damage do you think Lewis's power would do to someone with 4oz gloves let alone a small guy? Have a look at Klit's face and picture 4oz gloves vs a smaller guy.
4 oz gloves don't increase power. Gloves were designed to protect the fighters hand not the other fighter. With the size gloves that Fitz used Lewis wouldn't be have a defense. That is the angle I am getting at. We never saw spectacular head movement or a good chin from Lewis either.
The dude fought at 200 lbs. Even said he was 227 walking around weight and cut down to 200 and was in shape at that weight.
Lighter gloves with less padding all adds up to punchers like Lewis doing serious facial damage. It's getting closer to bare knuckles. Look at Mitch Green after going the distance with Tyson then look at him after one punch in the street fight. Lewis would wipe Fitz with any glove.
You are forgetting that Fitz was a puncher himself. Also, Lewis wasn't even a physical fighter himself. He was a boxer with a big punch. He wasn't a defensive genius at all. Very little head movement came from him. Lewis certainly wouldn't be 245lbs in 1890 guarantee and Fitz wouldn't be a middleweight in 1990s either. I don't think that Lewis was any less talented than Fitz from what we saw they just fought in different era's where boxing technique was different. Like trying to compare cats and dogs almost. You cannot however say that Lewis would just go all out balls to the wall forgoing defense and knock Fitz out in the first round when MUCH less talented me saw the end of the first round than Fitz. It wouldn't happen because he never did that in his entire career.
I respect ever opinion on here. I think if you ignore the legend and watch prime Fitz fighting as well as prime Rahman fighting you would have to conclude the latter is the more talented.
Being in shape and being in optimum physical shape are not the same thing. So what if Dempsey fought there? What does that prove? The 180s was where he had his best performances so logically that is his natural fighting weight.
Come on then Eastside Experts, when does size not matter then? At what weight does it not matter if some agree the Heavyweight division is not fair....
You can't say that because we haven't seen the very great majority of his fights on film. Now if you want to say from the film we have then yes I would agree but from what I read on the Morris fight sounds like Dempsey was giving him a beating and about to knock him out before Morris was DQ'd. Morris was an in shape 226 lbr so we would have an even better look at how Dempsey went about fighting big men.
[url]http://static.boxrec.com/2/25/BurgeFitz.JPG[/url] Fitz is considerably taller than Jeffries who was 6'