Was Foreman really weight drained in his first career and if so, how much and why?

Measurements can be off, but while Foreman was not much bigger, he was naturally bigger.
Even as an amateur in the 230's.
Yes he was lean at 220.
But he was often dehydrated-he was 226 vs. Lyle, 231.5 vs. Denis-think he looked fatter then?
I think he easily could have been 230 or so lean absent dehydration & still about as lean as Louis & Ali.
Ali 210-215 when at his very best.
Even if 206 when at his prime, not peak...
Similarly Foreman could have ranged from early 220's to 10 lbs. heavier in his prime, without leaning down

This content is protected

dehydrating.

SO I have him naturally 15 lbs. heavier than Ali with the same fitness-you a little less.

 

He did not dehydrate in the modern sense. He did not drink the day of the fight or so, only having an ice cub put on his tongue. It was some old-school relic.

He stopped Peralta in the tenth round just fine which is a feat nobody in the division replicated, including Lyle and Bonavena. The stamina issues myth comes from Ali and Young fights taking place in intense heat and high humidity (sweat doesn't evaporate from your skin efficiently, making you overheat easily.) His proactive, controlling, strength-based style and at times inefficient punching technique left him the victim in such environment compared to economic slickster boxers.

 

Fair point, I should have said that "I don't think people have naturally got 30-40lbs heavier, or grown naturally bigger to the tune of 30-40lbs, in the last 50-years." i.e. I suspect the average weight of someone with the same body fat % today is not 30-40lbs heavier than during the 1970's.

My underlying point was that typically, HWs today, diet, train & take supplements (legal or otherwise) differently to their counterparts in the 1970's and that, on average (though not in all cases), the same HW in the 1970's would be heavier if they'd been born later and were competing today, due to those changes, than they were in the 1970's.

 

That's a difficult question to answer & you'll get different responses based on different interpretations of "natural weight".

Even assuming you mean "natural" fighting weight, as opposed to walking around weight, it depends what allowance you include for adding manufactured muscle mass, when determining "natural fighting" weight, which as I've alluded to in this thread, typically differs from 70's & before to 90's & beyond.

e.g. what would you consider to be Lennox Lewis's "natural fighting weight"? Lewis was 229lbs vs Bruno aged 28. In that fight & the 12 x fights he had in the preceding 3-years, he averaged 228lbs. From the Lionel Butler fight, aged 29, onwards, he averaged around 245lbs, with no visually noticeable increase in body fat %, aside from the Rahman 1 (253.5lbs) & Vitali (256.5lbs) fights. i.e. he deliberately added lean muscle mass, by adopting a diet, supplement & training regime that is now typical, and probably pushed even further, amongst most elite HWs.

Now, how do Lewis & Foreman's natural fighting weights compare? At ages 25 to 28 Lewis averaged 228lbs. In the 8 x fights Foreman had aged 25 to 28, he averaged 226.5lbs. If aged 29 to 37, Foreman had adopted the exact same diet, supplements & training methods that Lewis did at those ages, what do you think he would have weighed, on average?

 

No, he was dehydrated after going 12. That's typically how that happens.

 

My first trainer he had been boxing in the Olympics. He boxed in the Olympics when when Ali was there.

He explained like you should not be having too much water in the body. You got to cut back on water because if you take a wet sponge and you throw against the ground it stays there. If you take a dry sponge and you throw it against the ground it bounces up. The same goes for the body. If the body is dry it’s more bouncy.

I don’t think it’s a good idea but that’s what they believed back then.

 

You got this backwards. Lack of humidity makes you dehydrate. And he looked bad against 180 pound Peralta.

 

High humidity causes the sweat, our central way of regularing body temperature, evaporate slower, causing overheating, increased exhaustion and the likes. Combine it with heat and principles of Foreman's style being energy consuming and you get the idea.

We only have footage of the first Peralta fight which took three years before Foreman's title shot. I am not even certain if he had Archie Moore and Sandy Saddler to polish his style back then. Regardless, he stopped Giyo in the rematch (11 fights of experience more, including bouts againt Kirkman and Chuvalo.) That speaks for itself.

 

Like I said, you got it backwards. Low humidity, high temp makes you dehydrate. High humidity makes you sweaty and less likely to dehydrate. It’s why people die in the desert.

 

Grey this is a Foreman thread, “abandon all hope ye who enter here” leave all your silly logic at the doorway.

 

I don't understand why a heavyweight boxer would dehydrate? Maybe because it looks good; I could accept that reason. Hardly any boxer, and hardly any man, is as naturally defined ("dry") as Wilder. In any case, Foreman naturally has a higher percentage of fat in his body than Wilder (which is clearly visible in the case of the "second Foreman").

 

You think Wilder cuts weight? He looks like someone who is genetically predisposed to stay lean. I'm sure he trains hard and eats right, but I bet for him to stay lean is a lot easier than for some others.

 

Absurd exchange.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/life...-could-impact-our-health-101656661645810.html

https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/humid-heat

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/it-s-not-just-heat-it-really-humidity-know-risks-n629486

High humidity=compromised body temperature regulation system.