The recent phenomenon of not having an elite heavyweight who is a natural midleweight

Wouldn't Toney count here.

He was top ten at least, though the current heavy era is appallingly bad.

 

Top ten at best. His best win is over a 42 year old Holyfield. He managed to get outboxed by Peter, twice. Not exactly comparable to what Greb, Langford etc did during their eras.

Certainly the increase in size of heavyweights has had its effect on the success of the middleweight, although on the flipside, middleweights can bulk up easier.

 

That's why I think there's been somewhat of a resurgence of smaller fighters stepping up with some success (Spinks, Jones, Toney) during the age of weight lifting and steroids. The latest fighter to do that before was Archie Moore (Foster tried, but didn't have much success).

 

Heavies these days are MUCH bigger than middles in terms of height, reach, and weight. Back in the day, a middle weight - light heavyweight might only give 10-25 pounds vs the champ.

Today the middle weight is giving up 80-90 pounds in weight, 6"-8" in height, and 5-7" in reach.

As great as a pound for pound fighter might be in boxing, I have never seen one give up the above numbers and win on the world class levels.

Asking a middle these days to beat Wlad or Vitlai would be like asking the best flyweight in the world to take out the middle weight champion.

 

I have to agree with this,a class middle may kick the arse of a 3rd rater at heavy ,but the top men today are so much bigger, and usually a bit more athletic than their comparable sized predecessors.

 

But has this phenomenon ever really stopped?

Chris Byrd was definitely one of the top 3 during the early 2000s. Toney and Jones Jr were arguably more recent examples also. To be perfectly honest though, if Toney is one of the top 2 or 3 fighters at the moment (i dont think he is), you would have to think that Bernard Hopkins would fare equally as well at heavyweight currently. And what does that say about small guys who have beaten him, like a Joe Calzaghe.

Actually, now i think about it, how does the light heavy that kod byrd fare in heavyweight rankings, when you consider that he handled byrd just as impressively as the klitchskos did. My honest opinion is that if there were no weight limits at all, middleweights would still become top contenders and some may even challenge and win the world title, even today.

One thing history does also tell us though, for every skilled middleweight contender, time will eventually find a slow unskilled lumbering big man to come along and knock them out.

 

Ezzard Charles
Chris Byrd
Roy Jones
James Toney

 

I was going to say Byrd aswell...He was a titlist and top contender for quite some time.

 

Byrd was only under 175 lbs for his two first and his last pro fight, though. And he's never been a middleweight as a pro.

I think Janitor meant guys that acccomplished something at lower weights before moving up. Otherwise Ellis is a better example, he actually was a middleweight for his first years as a pro.

 

You gotta ask yourself which of them were natural middleweights though. Conn, Charles, Jones, Toney, Byrd, were not natural middleweights.

 

Byrd wasn't a natural middleweight. The lowest he could go was lightheavyweight and we saw how weak he was there. He was competing at HW around 210lbs, not at 160lbs. Huge difference. Toney has never been top5 unless you think beating a 42 year old Holyfield who hadn't won a fight in several years justifices that. By the way, Toney was a natural lightheavyweight, not a middleweight.

 

Exactly. Most natural middleweights start at welterweight or even lower when they start early. Walker is the last example of this, but even at that, the heavyweights he competed with would've fought at LHW today with day before weigh-ins.