How would steroid-clean Evander Holyfield do against today's top heavyweights?

Modern heavies are probably juicing but Hollifield was jacked on the high octane juice. It was hilarious to see but he was a smaller guy fighting much bigger guys. Prime Evander had a granite chin. I was a fan and loved how he took out the trash in the Tyson fight. Wish he fought young Tyson because I like Evander in that fight although it would be closer. Tough man.

 

He was a smallish HW at his peak. And as people have posted, he was on premium juice.

Yes, he had excellent will and a good chin.
But he losses to most any of today's top HWs and stopped by many. Too many fans are biased by fond nostalgia.

 

I doubt it, Barry Bonds went from a 30-35 home run guy at his prime age late 20's to hitting 73 in one season. He hit more homeruns in his thirties than in his 20's. Holyfield not on steroids would have been 10 or 15 pounds at most over his cruiser weight fight with Qawi. He could have never handled Bowe without juice, and what would his fights with Foreman, Holmes, even Bert Cooper have looked like? He'd have come nowhere near the sucess he had without the roids, not even arguable.

 

This is a very good summary.
Also there are many people including bodybuilders that have physical probelms or die young due to PEDs.
Not only massive amounts, but that tends to be much worse like say chain smoking-& some are delusional trhat they can know how much to take & cycle off to ensure health. Although they can make serious damage somewhat less likely.

3-15% is both a huge amount on the top level when every small increase can be the difference...
And does not approach what the people get out of it using it assiduously, effectively, "staking" drugs for years.
Strength can increase a lot more than muscle mass-like height varies much less than weight.
But you better believe that guys like 8X Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman would not be at most 5' 11", in COMPETITION shape (max 5% BF & without much food in the system) at ~ 300 lbs!

Even with quite large bones, maybe he could have reached 220 AT THAT MINIMAL body fat level & typical height.
That equals over 1/3 more weight that can be achieved naturally...
All of it, around 80 extra lbs., muscle.

 

Usyk was 221 1/2 vs. AJ.

 

I agree with your conclusion about how Evander would do naturally.

But we do not know that at least half of the guys are on gear.
That may well be, but it may be somewhat less.
To be specific you have to be completely speculative.

 

No that is incorrect.
Firstly the times & distances & performances would often be much less impressive.

Secondly since not everyone lies & cheats, then we would have some different champions-some never make it, others are elevated, sometimes dramatically.

Thirdly even how much people respond to gear is largely down to both genetics & a successful doping program.

Lastly some who rely on things PEDs help with more can get more out of it.

 

Cheers for the in-depth info mate.

I did think that a fighters gas tank 'may' suffer due to the bulking up of solid muscle, just as it would do if the extra mass was gained buy natural means.

I just wasn't sure if the PEDs use would counteract and help with a fighters stamina/gas tank regardless of his added weight. IE: win-win.

 

Agree generally with your post.
What I understood about that study I read was 3-15% increase was direct speed and strenfth improvement over previous natural personal best. I think body builders are a bit of an exception due to two factors. Firstly they're taking a lot of gear and secondly from the 90's it was about increasing mass which I don't recall being quantified in the study I read.
I do recall the first of the "Mass Monsters" being Dorian Yates who underwent a huge tranformation from a normal well built 5ft 10inch to a monster from '92 to '93 peaking at 260lbs by the end of the decade Ronny was as you say hitting 300lbs with max 5% body fat.
We can attrtibute this to mainly to HGH which visibly changed not just the aesthetic of body builders but clearly gave some huge gains to those who had the genetics to fully capitalise it.

 

yes
[url]https://talksport.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2021/01/MikeTysonEvanderHolyfield.jpg?strip=all&quality=100&w=1200&h=800&crop=1[/url]

 

I think personally it's somehere in the middle. I don't subsdribe to either extreme of no one takes them or everyone takes them.
I base my estimate on the one time as I stated earlier on the '84 Los Angeles which was a pre mandate test performed. This showed just over 60% proved to be positive. The issue with this looking at the bigger picture is that no country is going to invest billions then to call everyone out as this would be financial suicide. The Los Angeles test results were lost in an office "fire". It should be noted that the IOC only started random testing in '67 with it only becoming mandatory by 2012 London olympics. This simple fact fact demonstrates a system that clearly has a bias for doping. I also understand that testing itself is both not fully effective in determining PED use but athelete's can cycle down or take other drugs to mask. The Lance Armstrong case demonstarted not only the ability to pass test's as elite level but the various meashures the team took to get an advantage with things like blood doping.
So if I'm guessing half then that's understanding that certain sportss like body buliding cycling sprinting that percentage is clearly far higher than the average. An example would be the '88 100m in which Ben Johbson was caught and rightfully dragges over the coals. However over the following decades all other sprinters other than Carl Lewis admitted that they were not clean in that race. The same can be demostrated in cycling doing retro active testing showing that in one race first place was awarded to 13th place as all other riders above were DQ'd. This has happened on other occassions to a lesser extent were the first 5-6 riders have been disqualified.
So I'm not pulling this completely out of my backside but basing it as an average on the reasons and rational that I've already laid out.

 

They have the potential to give you that advantage but it would need to be balanced in terms of that gain. Say if your naturally 220lbs and put just 10lbs and your training for conditioning then I think you could see gains in endurance if your training was focussed on conditioning.
The issue is in boxing we can see that same 220lb and they add 30lbs. So now your 30lbs heavier but your heart is still the same volume so that bottleneck becomes oxygen feeding that extra mass. So I think boxers at the heavier scale go too far in adding mass and not enough on actual conditioning. The perfect exaple of this was Shannon Briggs who put quite a lot of mass on but he would have to rely on getting you out of there within a few rounds as otherwise he would be completely spent. So the short answer is yes you csn hsve that wiin win but it's a fine balance that most don't get because they focus on looking like a super hero.

 

Well it seems then that Holyfield in particular did find that balance. (assuming he used PEDs).

Certainly in his early days at heavyweight. He had no problem going 12 very hard rounds.

His chin & recuperative powers in the first two Bowe fights were excellent too.