The old adage - A good big man always beats a good little man..

This old adage was shot to hell when Dick Tiger twice defeated Jose Torres in '66 and '67
both times by 15 round decisions. Prior to that Tiger was the good big man beaten by a good little man in Emile Griffith.

 

the old adage was proved right when carlos monzon battered jose napoles and joe frazier used bob foster as target practise.the same thing would have happened if monzon had fought foster

 

I don't think I agree with the premise of this thread. It seems to me that there have been a lot of Heavyweight Champions of the World who fought at Light Heavyweight earlier, and many who could have probably made the Light Heavyweight llimit of 175 if they had really wanted to, even after winning the Heavyweight crown. In fact, where the sport of boxing is concerned, I think that once a human being gets above 180 pounds there is usually a trade off effect in place as the weight goes up. It has to do with internal organ size, overall hand speed, and things of that nature...in my opinion.

 

I think that it all comes down to the QUALITY of the little man and the big man.. As Steve alrady mentioned, Holmes was two months shy of his 36th birthday when facing an all time great light heavyweight who was undefeated, had never been floored, and incidentally, stood 6'3", weighing 200lbs. Still it was a close fight and the rematch arguably should have gone in favor of Holmes. It wasn't like we had a situation where a 5'10" 180 lb man with over 100 fights of milage, including 20 losses was stepping up against a 29 year old Holmes and dominated the day lights out of him..

I am a firm believer that a truly great fighter can beat a truly good fighter of greater size, but its usually not the case when we match a smaller man against a larger man who matches or exceeds him in ability.. If the bigger man is slow, under trained, inexperience, or past prime, and is lacking in major essentials, then a man like Roy Jones, Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore, etc will likely triumph.. If the larger man in question however, is in great condition, has reasonable mobility, a solid chin, big punch and sufficient experience, then in my book the bigger guy is usually going to prevail.... Using examples like Jones vs Ruiz, Dempsey vs Willard, Marciano vs Vingo, Fitz vs Dunkhorst or Langford vs Tate, are not the greatest scenarios to illustrate my point, as the bigger fighters in those match-ups were clearly incomplete in numerous areas.

Of the 4 or 5 best heavy weights in 2002 - 2003, I don't think I would have favored Jones to beat any of them... John Ruiz was the titlist of choice for Jones because he was by far the most beatable... Lennox Lewis, Vitali Klitschko, Wladimir Klitschko, Chris Byrd and Corrie Sanders posed too much of a threat...

 

Nah, that was a good, lucky huge guy against a great tiny guy.

 

I would have no problem with calling Griffith a great little man, not just a good one.

 

It's all in the match up ... ages of fighters, arch's in their careers and styles matching up ...

 

As a generalisation it works, but it's far from a scientific maxim.

It depends entirely on the individuals in question and the matter of styles. Some fighters, heavyweights especially, have more trouble with smaller men than they do with big men. Some smaller fighters are "giant-killers" but not always good against men their own size.

 

Here are some fighters that never read said maxim:

Jem Mace
Bob Fitzsimmons
Terry McGovern
Joe Walcott
Sam Langford
Jack Dillon
Harry Greb
Mickey Walker
Charley Burley

 

Yet Fitzsimmons vs Jeffries, Langford vs Johnson and Walker vs Schmeling are typical examples of good/great small men being beaten by good/great big men.

Not that I'm necessarily disputing that claim, but who do you think qualify for said statement?

 

Carlos Monzon personifies greatness in the game. As good a championship fighter as ever lived.

 

The big guys cant loose em all.