How many HW champions meet U.S. Army weight requirements?

The way I see it : the increase in size of the general population should not be regarded as key.
Once we start considering such statistics it opens up too much debate and uncertainty.
We could talk about thousands of sociological factors and have half-baked theories that 'sound right' but prove nothing.

Consider this ....
The size of heayweight boxers could actually very well increase while the size of the "average man" decreases.
That's like saying fashion models can get skinnier in a society where the average person is getting fatter.

So, it's easier and simply explained if we stick to what actually happens in the boxing world.

 

But if a regular girl decides to become a fashion model she will also become very skinny to fit in with the trend of models. So that comparison still holds true.

Boxers are a subset of the population. That is an unquestionable and undeniable fact.

It also makes a lot of sense that in the heaviest division it will contain boxers who are the tallest in the sport. Tall boxers can only exist if tall men exist.

The more tall men exist the more likely we are to see tall boxers.

I agree with your tipping point theory though, I just think it occurred more naturally than Choklab does. If you have Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis at the top of the division, it makes sense that people fighting them want to weigh more.

 

Ok will this do then? There's the same graph that you produced as well.

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2016/05/people-much-taller-today-historically/

ok if I said "it" levelled out when I should have said "it started to level out" please forgive me. But I have already said it doesn't matter even if this levelling began later. It still doesn't explain where the Giants were before this. As in the whole point of the thread.

ok well here is a quote that says the same thing.

"Things began to change after WWII. In the last half century or so, the average American height has more or less remained the same, while post-war Europeans have, on the whole, sprouted like crazy."

This is taken from the link above that I produced and not dissimilar to what I have been saying. That the Americans were already towering above Europeans before they caught up and passed them.

And I agree with the "enormous growth after 1960 in Germany and Russia" because the starting point of this growth outside of America was generations after America had already been producing the tallest people. There is research that groups the industrialised world, the west, together and it says...

"In the 150 years since the mid-19th century, the average human height in industrialised countries has increased by up to 10 centimetres (3.9 in).[47] However, these increases appear to have largely levelled off."

That's just from Wiki. But there are many other sources that say the same kinds of things.

Again, my mentioning things I have read on the subject can be produced from many sources.

"A century of trends in adult human height

1. NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC)

RESEARCH ARTICLE Jul 26, 2016


There were also variations in the time course of height change across high-income western countries, with height increase having plateaued in Northern European countries like Finland and in English-speaking countries like the UK for 2–3 decades (Larnkaer et al., 2006; Schönbeck et al., 2013), followed by Eastern Europe (Figure 7). The earliest of these occurred in the USA, which was one of the tallest nations a century ago but has now fallen behind its European counterparts after having had the smallest gain in height of any high-income country (Tanner, 1981; Komlos and Lauderdale, 2007; Komlos and Baur, 2004; Sokoloff and Villaflor, 1982)."

 

Yes. That's precisely what I'm saying. That is the important part. That is factual and understandable.

Yes.

That is only factually true (proven even, through deductive reasoning) if everything else in "the world" ("society") stays exactly the same in relation to boxing.
But that's not the case.

We can discuss thousands of sociological factors that could off set each other. But it's a waste of time.

Everything in boxing is natural on its own terms.
I have difficulty understanding what choklab is even driving at with a lot of his "natural", "artificial", "functional" terms most the times.

 

I will say :
Anabolic PEDs do exist. There was a time when boxers did not have them.
Weight training is openly encouraged more among boxers than in years gone by.

But those facts are just details on how a boxer might gain weight these days.

The why is more important. Why gain weight ?
Answer: Because it can often help.
And boxers always knew this. Boxers have always tried to alter their body weight, one way or another.

 

well then evolution idea and the population getting bigger idea cannot be used if there is no growth to explain it. Is that the same as saying the Giants were always as big we just did not know they would make good boxers.

there is truth in this.

this is a good example. It's like saying females in the fashion industry are deliberately too skinny to meet U.S military Army requirements. Where as Boxers are deliberately too heavy to meet military weight requirements now.

there is truth in this.

 

That's perhaps a strange way of looking at it though.
I doubt heavyweight boxers or female fashion models give a **** about about U.S army height-weght requirements.
I doubt anyone cares about those requirements except potential recruits, recruiting officers ... and you !

Heavyweight boxers have always sought to alter/adjust/maximize/optimize their lean weight.
The only thing you can say now is that some of the best are better at it than anyone in the past.

Mind you, most of them still probably spend more time shedding weight than putting it on.

 

goodness, shoot me down for saying that "people in the western world stopped getting taller"

When What I should have said it the way it was written from the article...

"In the last half century or so, the average American height has more or less remained the same"

 

I think regarding health of the population, Doctors and dietitians are pretty keen on similar BMI charts as well..

 

Yes. And if in 2035, a 210lb giant slayer wins the crown, the presumptions will change once again.
All it takes is a small HW defeating a string of big guys for people to have a major psychological shift.
Something I think many of us agree that a guy like Louis would be more than capable of doing.

David Haye vs. Wlad Klitschko.
Obviously he didn't, but imagine for a moment if Haye won that fight. He would've been the undisputed lineal champion. Then he would've beaten 300lb Valuev.
Then he lose to 210lb Bellew.

Something as small as that could influence opinions and theories on size limitations.

As time goes by, our data pool enlarges.
And we now know that a Joe Louis, being fully optimistic, is a once in a century guy. Perhaps we learn that he is even rarer than that. I'm not ready to close the book on the "bigger is best" discussion.

If there is no serious sign of a sub 220lb HW dominator by 2040, however, it will be extremely difficult for me to uphold that view.

 

I hear you, and fair point.
One case would indeed be an anomaly compared to the general trend.
It will take a few of them for boxing trainers to look at 6'6 guys and say "So what?"

Nonetheless, I think that if Haye were known as the best in the world for a period, and lost to a 210lb guy down the line after beating a 300lb giant, views would be different. Especially given he was a former cruiserweight, and lost to a 198lb cruiserweight.