Heavyweight size explosion in the early 1970s?

I wonder what would have happened if the super heavyweight class was introduced into olympic boxing in the 1950s?

After all, There always was enough giant heavyweight boxers in America to see everything we have today in the professional ranks.

Giants never did well in amateur tournaments until the SuperHeavyweight division was invented for them. Managers have traditionally recruited winners of tournaments and there wasnt tournaments for Giants to win until the Superheavyweight class was invented.

Once that happened the pro heavyweight class became the professional super heavyweight division in all but name. This is where we are now. They just did not change the name.

I really wonder what would have happened if the super heavyweight class was introduced into Amateur boxing in the 1950s?

 

I was thinking the exact same thing. By the late 60s/early 70's pretty much every heavyweight champion or contender was around 6'2 to 6'6.

 

It's because the Baby Boomer generation was reaching adulthood. There were more big people who happened to be elite athletes because the sheer number of 20 something Americans had increased. Also, Blacks had easy access to the pro ranks unlike in Dempsey's time.

 

I would imagine that the 1950s was the first decade where the average family in the USA had a food surplus.

The early 70s is when this would have been reflected in the adult population.

 

A combination of these two factors would be my best bet.

 

And yet they say the average height of Americans pretty much levelled off after the war.

“Data collected from the federal Centers for Disease Control show that average height for Americans has stabilized in the past 50 years to about 5 feet 9 inches for men and 5 feet 4 inches for women.

"We've pretty well maxed out in terms of stature. There's been little change in adult height over last generation," says William Leonard, an anthropologist at Northwestern University.”

 

That doesn't conflict with my point in any way.

 

According to Our World in Data (a site powered by the Oxford University) height has been increasing in the Western world since WWII: https://ourworldindata.org/human-height

 

Yes western world in general. That includes Europe which has seen astonishing growth in catching up with the Americans who were previously the tallest nation on earth. America can stop growing and millions in Europe can continue growing. Overall the western world increases. So your data is correct and my data can be correct too.

 

The US has a larger Hispanic population than it used to. They generally aren't as tall as black and white people. I have no idea if black and white people in the US have continued getting taller.

 

That’s a good point. I imagine that could factor in. I also don’t know if the working class in America was any shorter than middle and upper class people like it is in Europe. Boxing is a working class sport so if that was the case, Americans could conceivably stop growing whilst the boxers got taller? I don’t know though.

I think the better theory could be that HW got bigger when the bigger heavyweights got better. And they got better because training changed. The sports training began to get more out of that sized athlete than previously it was ever able to.

All fighters can comfortably carry a lot more weight than ever before. This is a huge factor.

A fighter can reach a higher maximum weight potential now whilst it is still being functional to him. This opens the door to a size of fighter that was previously less successful.

 

They started to drink those protein shakes and lift weights and getting that pumped artifical size and muscles and fake strength, unlike old school boxers who chopped wood and drank goat's milk.

 

Western world in general and also North America specifically, according to the site.

 

They have, at least according to the link I posted.