Would a Marciano born in the 80s or 90s have been trained as a HW?

Yes Holyfield was great at what you call just over 200 (which I would limit to 200-203, not 205-208, but that is a technicality).
But it goes beyond belief: he needed the size punch resitence & STRENGTH he had at a "rpoided/HGHed up 217 to control & move Tyson around-he was the stronger man then-just in the upper body, but that was enough.

Marciano would not need weights to get to 200 just as lean-that is just one great way to do it!
Again I am unsure if even being MORE than his up to late 180's-a perfect rehydrated LHW-would better for him-recall that the CWs he fights IF the limit then is 200 will be often near 220 lbs. on fight night!

Recreation, neck exercises & other specialty measures are useful.
As are basic heavy compound exercises like powerlifting-or even Olympic lifting, which takes excellent coordination to do efficiently-which would be combined with measures to maintain flexibility & mobility.

 

With what? Losing less than 10% fo water weight to make 175 lbs? We know that it's standard to lose 5-10% water weight in today's boxing, so should be absolutely no problem for a disciplined fighter like Marciano. That is without a single doubt the logical conclusion.

And if he cut ot things like steak and orange juice from his in camp diet and only do lean foods, he might well be in the low 180's when he starts the water cut. And then cut 7-8 lbs. Very, very standard.

But if we're talking if he could make MW without seriously comprising himself, yes, then we're more into unknown factors since losing that much water weight is much more rare.

I know that Clottey lost a similar percentage of water weight and we have MMA fighters like Perreira, Costa and Romero who lose around 30 lbs (actually a bit over 30 for Perreira) to make 185. So I think that still would be possible today for someone with Marciano's mindset, but I don't think he would find it necessary. 175 would probably suit him the best, as it does for example Beterbiev.

 

Starts as a super-middle or maybe light heavy, and eventually tries his luck as an undersized cruiser.

 

Holyfield was 6`2 Marciano was only 5`9.

 

Yes his real height may have been 69"!

 

This is some of the worst bro science i've ever seen. Why are martial artists obsessed with being wrong when it comes to modern training methods? Weight lifting is not the same as body building. Weight lifting doesn't "make your blood go to the wrong place", what are you actually talkng about. You can lift weights to increase explosiveness, you can lift weights to increase muscle mass, increase power, increase speed, increase endurance, etc. Has absolutely nothing to do with blood, unless you're talking about pumps, which doesn't do anything near as detrimental as you're suggesting.

 

He probably would have done even better vs Tyson around 205. He had more work rate and was faster on his feet. It was a good performance but Tyson had lost the focus he once had and was in jail for 4 years not long before the fight with Holyfield.

I used to do a lot of power cleans for wrestling. Knowing what I know now I would not even lift weights for wrestling which is a lot more of a strength sport then boxing.

 

I do not think so; because he absolutely needed that size & strength to handle & sometimes bully Tyson.
I do not think he would even have won without any clinching being allowed as it was.
I am surprised at what you say re: wrestling.
It is unlikely all the coahes are wrong about the usefulness of such Olympic movements.

 

This is extremely overstated.

Holy's average weight the year he was originally scheduled to face Tyson, 1991, was 209 lbs. The year he did face Tyson for the first time, 1996, his average weight was 213. So 4 lbs difference.

Not more than you would expect with normal ageing from 29-34. He didn't body transform in any way, only aged.

 

This isn't a rhetorical question; why do you think that literally every single sports scientist in existence disagrees with you on the effectiveness of resistance training? Them with their over a century worth of research and multibillion dollars worth of research in addition to the athletes and coaches that swear by it, of whom can predict the resistant training induced improvements to their performance so accurately that they can periodize their training over the course of several years down to the week, are all wrong?

Resistance training making you stronger isn't even physiology 101, it's like physiology 000. Any child that's ever done push ups knows this.

That and sparring doesn't increase muscular hypertrophy lol , so idk where that came from either. You can't say to someone "oh you want to move up in weight class and put on 15lbs? Don't lift weights, just spar more". Unless they're on a **** tonne of juice.

 

He was 217 vs. Tyson in one fight.
But while the weight gain was normal, MMA is correct that it was all muscle-he may have even lost fat.
Actually it is not even that nobody his height could get to such lean overall weigh in muscle mass at that age-it is that he used PEDs to do so, + unusually it seemed to be all upper body mass.

And it would be very unusual to be natural with even disproportionate mass at the traps & neck-the latter *might* happen with a boxer since they use it so much & do neck exercises.
But the area around there, especially the traps, have more androgen receptors.

So those on PEDs tend to have even more muscle right there as an artifiscial amount of testosterone or its derivatives &/or HGH are pumped into the system for the body to respond to!

The BALCO/"Evan Fields" evidence where Holyfield answered the phone when investigators called his number from that company's records is the clincher.

 

He was 212 already in 1989 and 210 for the fight that originally should have been against Tyson. So we're not talking more than Louis gained during the same age for comparison.

And no, he didn't have less fat.

 

Lots of fighters gained that much in lean weight in their 30's. Noteworthy examples being Johnson, Louis, Charles and Marciano. Off the top of my head.

The ONLY reason why it's made into big thing here is because he whupped that ass.