"A good big 'un, beats a good little 'un?"

I think it's more about moving up too many weight classes for a big fight than anything.

 

Ward beating Kovalev ? Not sure if that’s a good example or not. Spinks beating Holmes ?

 

I think that refers to weight classes. An ATG welterweight and middleweight like Sugar Ray Robinson would probably lose to a good, solid world class light heavyweight contender or especially a good, solid heavyweight fighter. Ray Robinson totally eclipses Trevor Berbick in skill, but he likely gets beat down by Berbick as Trevor would be too big and strong combined with his decent world class boxing ability.

 

But Spinks still had to bulk up to get the job done. Imagine Spinks coming in at 170 pounds vs Holmes? Spinks gets carried out of the ring

 

Monzon vs Napoles. Small welter vs a big middle. You can really see what a big gap in strength, power, durability does for two genuine world class boxers. Even with Monzon starting slowly and cautiously, once he got started he battered napoles from rd 5 straight to the corner stoppage at the start of round seven.

 

Tony Canzoneri (136-1/2) v Jimmy McLarnin (143) First fight. Tony later said this was the fight of which he was the most proud. In retrospect, he wished he had retired right after that fight.

 

James Braddock Vs. Max Baer
Marvis Frazier Vs. James Smith
Joe Louis Vs. Primo Carnera...

 

the Phrase sticks because it is a Real Fact, well over 90% of the time... a Big boy, will usually beat a little one.

the Langford's & Qawi's (Greatest mythical match up btw), or Iron Mike's, or any other smaller victors, they are FEW in Comparison to the 100's of thousands of fighters who every entered through the ropes.

and NO amount of these 'few' exceptions will EVER justify or prove the best of the giants MUST be the Greatest Ever... namely Mr. Fury...

WRONG and excessively demonstrably wrong - the Subpar performances, individually & collectively as a Division - S-HWs - is Living Colour Proof of this FACT!

 

Brings up an interesting question. How bad of a heavyweight would beat up SRR?
Would Andy Ruiz, Chisora Wilder whoop him? Or a guy like ray austin?

 

The one that springs most to mind. Mainly because they were regarded as probably the top 2 pfp fighters in boxing at the time, so when the levels are so equal, that significant size difference came into it.

 

yes

 

The saying simply means, all else being equal otherwise, greater size will win the day.

A perfectly framed, self contained truth.

However “all else being equal” is a rather broad description let alone that it never actually exists exactly in fact.

Also, in the general run and by nature, smaller fighters garner greater credit in terms of P4P skills as compared to their larger counterparts.

So it isn’t so infrequent to see a smaller “better” man facing a bigger “good” man with the former coming out on top.

As to whether the deemed “better” qualities are sufficient to neutralise/negate and exceed the value of the “bigger” attributes - that obviously depends on the margin of skill advantage held by the smaller man.

Looking forward to one of the more compelling “better” smaller vs “good” bigger boxing matches in Usyk vs Fury, their being described respectively, of course.

 

Keep in mind that this saying dates back to the days of REAL catchweight fights — which is the opposite of the meaning now.

Catchweight as originally conceived (and used) meant two guys in different weight classes fought and each came in as he pleased — if a lightweight fought a welter, the welter might weight 147 and the lightweight 134 … or if he usually struggled to make lightweight he might be 138 or so.

Nowadays, catchweight seems to mean an agreed-upon point in the middle, with the larger man taking on the handicap of shedding weight to come in lower than the limit of his weight class — like a light heavyweight contracting to come in at 170 to defend against a middleweight moving up.

I asked in a thread some years ago if anyone knew when the meaning of catchweights actually flipped to mean exactly the opposite of what it once meant, but I don’t remember anyone having the answer.

But while the phrase ‘ a good big man beats a good little man’ still has merit in principle if there’s not too huge a gap in skill and a small enough gap in weight (I don’t fancy a bantam against a opponent-class heavyweight), it comes from a time when you might have Billy Conn coming in below 175 to fight Joe Louis, a full-blown heavyweight. It certainly wasn’t meant to include a smaller heavyweight vs. a larger one, or a 156-pound middle vs. a 160-pounder.

 

Great post.