Do Heavyweights punch harder today...

I dont know of too many heavyweight champions that had more power in a single punch than Lennox Lewis did in his righthand.

 

Talking shite. You can look at it two ways - Force of punch = mass x acceleration which goes towards heavier gloves doing more damage.
Or pressure = force/area which leans towards lighter(smaller) gloves doing more damage.

Bigger gloves have more padding which negates any benefit of a slightly heavier glove giving more force to the punch.

Smaller gloves will do more damage.

 

Lennox's power was underrated for a long time, until he became an established champion really. When he fought Bruno the UK commentators were like Bruno is the big bomber here and Lewis is just a boxer, pretty funny guy in a deadpan jamaican way too, when he demolished Golota he "let him ponder my right-handa"

I reckon his best right-hand was harder than Tyson for one, Tyson was not the biggest one-punch guy

For their time , maybe only Marciano is comparable on single punch power, Foreman was a big puncher but not as much as Lewis I think

 

We need an engineer here to figure it out. Wouldnt a smaller glove with less overall mass travel faster to its target as well?

 

You playing hardball? Alright. You win this time McGrain, from the clan... McGrain. But I'll be back! Ha, ha, ha - etc, etc

 

Should do, yeah, assuming the boxer is using the same force on each glove, the smaller one will move faster.

 

I'd add guys like Airich and Platov to that list. Boytsov too

See below

I'm right on the same wavelength as you about this Bodhi.

I remember reading something on a study of size to strength ratio in the animal kingdom. The field of study that i want to say is bio-mechanics but i'm not positve.

Anyways, an ant can lift 1000X it's own strength (or something like that) and an elephant can lift 5X it's own weight. Now obviously a Elephant can lift way more weight than an ant due to it's size. But as they studied more and more animals you reach a point when you find the optimum size to marry both size and strength for their maximum effect, that sweet spot.

Force = Mass X Acceleration
force = punching power
mass = weight
acceleration = handspeed

Too light in weight and there isn't enough mass behind your punches. Too much mass and you lose hand speed, also diminishing power. (think Valuev)

Using history as the evidence the sweet spot seems to be between 185lbs - 220lbs, the most frequent between 205-215.

Dempsey - 190 average weights
Marciano - 185
Louis - 205-210
Shavers -210
Foreman- 215-220
Tyson - 215

Now like any rule there are exceptions.

- On the low end would be Fitz and Ketchel who proved at 160 they packed a HW punch.

- On the high end would be Lewis or Klitschko, my opinion, they have the coordination that most big men don't and somehow manage to keep the handspeed of a 210lb puncher.

That seems to make sense to me at least.

There has been 1 death, in the late 90's in a fight in Ukraine. It was a 1 show promotion type deal and the fighter was an American, he got KO'd then started having a seizure (i saw a video of it) and ended up dying.

The guy had some type of pre-existing condition though that he managed to conceal when entering the tournament. I'm pretty sure that's the only recorded death in the sport.

 

You cant create as much acceleration with a heavier glove on your hand, but the weight of the glove is irrelevant. The main issue is the transferance of energy is less because of the softer glove that doesnt conduct the energy as efficiently.

Lets take an extreme example of a 3 pillows attached to your hands, if you punch someone its just not going to do damage of any kind.

The more padding the less damage/concussion, but the more padding also protects the fists to punch for longer

 

First, there’s something I want to clarify. This whole post is overly generalized and there are a lot more forces at work that I‘m not even going to attempt to cover. I’m only going to state as much as I feel you may be able to understand regarding my views on the subject of punching power.
From what I have come to reason, the true measure of power is how many pounds of force someone can generate with their best single punch. So if all the heavyweight champs in history were to be tested with a measuring device, I suspect that Lewis or the older Foreman would likely be in the top five. It’s really too hard to determine accurately who number one is with certainty. Though power is an important factor, believe it or not, it translates differently depending which type of fighters you fight. So as a rule of thumb I always remind myself that just because a boxer, if they land at the right spot, is the most capable of spinning the head the quickest, does not mean they have the most true power. That honor would only go to those who score the highest on the measuring device. I categorize the power punchers in the following ways.

1. The power KO artists- I give this title to guys that throw their punches at a slower velocity. Their advantage is that they have more mass in the fists and arms. Since their fists are usually bigger, the head will bounce off of there fist quicker. I somehow see Liston falling under this category for his time period, though I do not think his punches would have much of an effect on today’s big men.

2. The speed KO artists- now this can be deceptive, because it may seem to apply to guys like Tyson, but in reality, right before impact, his fists aren’t traveling much faster than the slow punching guys due to his lack of height and reach, which play a big role on generating the speed right before impact. He also has nearly as much bulk as some of the slow punching KO artists, which suggests that he didn’t need as much speed to generate the power he has shown. I would classify someone like Shavers a speed KO artist. The velocity of his punches before impact was frightening.

3. The fast accelerating KO artists- Tyson fits the mold perfectly here. Marciano does to, but only when going against opponents his size. Basically since these guys have shorter reaches, they have to reach optimum speed in a shorter period of time to be about as effective as the other 2 types of KO artists mentioned above. Their best attribute would have to be the ability to throw a KO punch which gives the opponent less time to react to it, since it’s traveling a shorter distance before impact. However, I suspect that these types in general don’t generate quite as much power as the others above.

Now from my observations, power seems to translate differently when delivered to different types of opponents.
Keep in mind that in general, the bigger or heavier an opponents head is, then the better their chin usually is. (I like to refer to weak chin as weak neck muscles, but I’m sticking to boxing terminology) I’ll only break it down into 4 types of opponents. Also take note that I’m assuming that all punchers would hit them squarely. So I’m not factoring defense whatsoever.

1. Opponents with the smaller/lighter heads with weaker chins relative to their head size. These guys are obviously the worse and would likely get KO’d by all the types of power punchers I have listed above.

2. Opponents with smaller/lighter heads with strong chins relative to their head size. I think the speed KO artists would spin their heads the quickest, followed by the fast accelerators, followed by the power KO artists.

3. Opponents with bigger/heavier heads with weaker chins relative to their head size. I believe the power KO guys would do best against these, followed by the speed KO artists, and then the fast accelerating KO artists.

4. Opponents with bigger/heavier heads with stronger chins relative to their head size. These types are what I would consider the greatest chins in boxing. If they had a decent defense I would only favor a power KO artist to dispatch of them. I think the other types of KO artists should choose another strategy that doesn’t focus on the KO when facing those kind of opponents, because if they go into the fight looking for the KO, I think it would likely be a long night for them.


That’s pretty much all I’m willing to say. Of course I left out many other factors like types of punches thrown, accuracy, the ability to score a KO of an opponent whose offensive and/or defensive skills are good and/or great, the ability to score late round KOs, plus the fact styles make fights. The list just goes on and on and on. That’s why my philosophy these days is to keep it as simple as possible.

 

Yes and yes.

 

Deontay Wilder, one of the lightest modern HWs hits the hardest.

 

Unfortunately no. At a certain point more weight has diminishing returns even on a fighter’s ability to generate power. Some of the hardest punchers I’ve seen were between 175-215 lbs with some exceptions.

 

In your opinion.

 

It's also the general census among the modern boxing community.

 

I very much doubt he hits harder/as hard as Ajagba.