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

I think he would've been trained as a LHW and moved to CW. I often say I don't rank him all that much as a great, great HW but that he was probably one of the greatest CW's of all time

 

Yeah sparring won’t add weight thats why I said Marciano would have to cut back on his road work and increase his calories which I believe he restricted to get up to 200 pounds.

Sports scientists would not recommend weight lifting for every sport.

 

Holyfield was built up with quite a bit of extra muscle that fight. Now I don’t know how much of that was from steroids and I don’t know if he lifted a lot of weights he might of just claimed to lift weights to cover the fact he was using steroids. But I do believe Holyfield could have beaten that version if Tyson in a variety of ways. Prime for Prime I think Tyson would win.

 

Again you are correct that this is not at all a suspicious or unusual amount of weight gain.
Also he may not have lost fat; I was speculating, but he was always lean, however he seemed even more ripped against Tyson.

But I am glad you said this about what was his (then highest) weight in 1989.
I went to box rec & tracked it: in *precisely* 8 months in 1988 he gained exactly 20 lbs between fights, 190-210!

In itself it means little. BUT if you correct for what someone is wearing/what time of day weighed (presumably about the same in formal weigh ins)...And body fat % & if dehydrated---> the only possible exculpating factor regarding if he started or hit the PEDs hard is if he dehydrated a lot of MAKE 190/CW.

Because if not, no way can an already strong guy put on anywhere near 20 lbs. of muscle mass in such a short time-all naturally.
Especially if it was almost all (where he had it), upper body muscle.

 

AS MMA clarified in the post just below your last one I am responding to...
Holyfield absolutely both was training hard with weights AND using PEDS!

We agree that Tyson would win prime for prime.
It is certainly arguable either way in the early 1990's...

 

Yes, but that started years before the slight weight increase that you're obsessing about. Lee Haney was with Holy already in 1990: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/22/sports/a-hungry-holyfield-gets-his-chance.html

 

And as I just answered him; that started years before the slight weight increase you're obsessing about.

Lee Haney was with Holy already in 1990: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/22/sports/a-hungry-holyfield-gets-his-chance.html

Who does? I think it's fairly idiotic to push that tbh. A further past his prime Holy dominated and stopped Tyson. The argument for him is strong, the one for Tyson is closer to a hope and a prayer.

Only in the manner that there's a nonsensical and tailor made for this particular excuse argument for Tyson and a very strong and logical one for Holy. Namely that he slapped the **** out of Tyson while being further removed from his prime. All else is an excuse to create a narrative for what actually happened, a narrative that funny enough nobody pushed before the fight.

 

There's no reason why Rocky couldn't start out as a welterweight.

 

You really think so?

 

No. I can't back that up.

 

I thought you might be coming at it from an angle, like what if he had turned professional at 18.

 

Whatever weight he would have fought at today, he was a dominant heavyweight champion, and the cruiserweight division didn't exist back then.

There were men the size of Valuev back then.

In a historical sense at least, I think that we have to view him as a heavyweight.

 

Surely over 160 at that point?

 

This debate rages on, and we will never ultimately know.

One thing that I think that I have proved in previous threads, is that some modern fighters of similar size, have made radically different choices.

One of the better examples of this is, Thomas Adamek and Eddie Chambers, who of course fought each other.

Adamek went the weight cutting route, while Chambers went straight for the big money at heavy.

Adamek contests belts at light heavy, then cruiser, while Chambers first fight against anybody with a pulse is at heavyweight.

Then when they finally meet at heavyweight, Adamek is 23lb heaver.

Now how can we possibly know, whether Marciano would have taken the Adamek philosophy, or the Chambers philosophy?

Where woudl we even begin?