Why do most deaths in the ring happen in the lower weight classes?

Higher output, more damage.

 

So the brain is the last organ to rehydrate, when you make weight the modern way like the weight cutter super stars of today do… you’d need at least 3-4 days to have a non compromised “thought sponge” the little guys are the most extreme I believe and so that’s my theory, if it were up to most fans of this sport it’d be day of weigh ins and forbidden dehydration with life time bans for PED’s

 

In boxing death(and the worst CTE in general) tends to come from sustaining damage over full fights and not single powerful blows. The small guys go to decision more and are more likely to take a full 12 rounds of punishment. They are also much smaller.

These circumstances are more likely to cause death and these circumstances are much more common in the smaller weight classes.

If you look at Baroudi or Schaaf a common thread is the fights that killed them were the only stoppage losses of their career and they had a lot of full fights in a rather short period of time that wouldn't have been full fights if not for those chins. At HW thats kind of unique.

 

Dehydration + higher outputs = death.

Cutting 20 pounds of pure water weight, barely being able to walk off the scales, and having most of the natural fluid that is supposed to cushion your brain skrink only to have someone like Roman Gonzalez or Jessie Rodriguez punch you in the head 100 times a round for 10 rounds straight until you get TKO'd would mess you up bad.

This is in stark contrast to not cutting fat mass or water weight at all and having your brain be perfectly cushioned then getting taken out by one big punch by a Zhang, Wilder, AJ etc. Much safer by comparison.

Imagine putting an egg in a jar full of jelly and shaking it REALLY hard a handfull of times. You'll have an egg that's mostly intact. That's most heavyweight fights.

Then imagine putting an egg in a empty jar and shaking it 100+ times. The egg will be obliterated lol. That can be a lot of fights in lower weight classes.

 

This is it. The fluid surrounding the brain in the skull diminishes as you lose excessive weight, Little guys probably lose higher percentages of weight and therefore fluid so there is less to absorb the shock as the brain moves around the skull and bumps into it.

 

Excellent.

 

Accumulative damage is more dangerous to the brain. At HW you get hit with big shots and get knocked out when the brain gives up. There is less power in the punches coming from the smaller guys. That's why it's actually safer for the brain to be hit bare knuckle than with the glove on. Your brain takes the same damage but with the boxing glove on you can take more hits while the bare knuckle may knock you out quicker.

 

Does anyone have any actual stats on the premise?
Are light heavyweights actually less likely to be killed boxing than lightweight?
And if so, are number of light heavyweight matches same as number of lightweight matches?

 

Same day weigh -ins necessitated many boxers dehydrating to make the stipulated weight,I think this was a significant factor .

 

Precisely it’s why I detest gyms that have guys run / do conditioning before sparring that’s accelerated brain damage inbound! When you spar you warm up hop in, work, go home after some conditioning / bags etc depending on what you have left in the tank… ideally

 

There’s also just statistics:

You’re talking three weight classes (175, 200 and unlimited) vs. 14 weight divisions.

Also, some parts of the world (chiefly Asia) produce precious few fighters from 175 and up.

I wonder if we had participation statistics for each weight class (every active pro boxer) as well as frequency of activity statistics (fights per year) would those numbers support the idea that fighters at 168 and lower are less likely than their lighter counterparts to die in the ring?

I suspect (but don’t have the data to prove) that by the numbers no particular weight is more likely to produce a ring death, and there’s not a line you can draw where above it you’re less likely and below it you’re more likely.

 

Maybe chins get better as men get larger but punching just doesn't scale the same way I.E. a featherweight probably objectively hits hard enough in terms of PSI to KO anyone but they don't have chins as good as larger men so the effect is magnified much, much more

Anecdotal example I remember watching a Ricardo Lopez highlight reel and his punching power was looking like Mike Tyson just seemingly insane power for his size 1 punch erase you from existence power but it could be the chins he was hitting simply can't take as much force.