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Okay if they thought Johnson was a giant, what did they think of Willard?

I’ve read many reports on Willard during his lifetime. What was the public reaction to his size? Because if Johnson was a giant, surely they’d think Willard was.....what...a planet? Well back in realityville, Willard was not some freak show. He was recognized as a big strong athlete who could use his height reach and strength as advantages in the fight game. People paid to see an athlete of his stature train and perform, but they weren’t coming to see “The Largest Man In The World!!”

So was Willard some international freak for his size? Or are you simply putting an outrageous amount of weight on a boxing nick name of a 6 ft fighter?

Yeah average height has increased, but the presence of 6’6 humans is not a new thing.

It’s not an uncommon to see a photo of Johnson around plain clothed non fighters where he isn’t the tallest man there. Same goes for many champions of the past.

Johnson was not seen as some gargantuan. Incredible athletic build, with really good height for the time.

The 20’s has a a bunch of SHWs.
And the 30’s were knee deep with them.

If you think the 30’s were an era without SHWs, you don’t know the 30’s HW roster.

Marciano was way smaller than Carnera. Are you saying human height regressed during that time gap? Because on one hand, you’re measuring max size by the champs of the era. One the other hand you’re (correctly) referencing trends of overall height increases. Your first method, using Johnson and Louis as measuring sticks for large HWs, is wrong. Your second is right.

There was a song about Louis while he was champion describing him as a small HW.

Louis fought many guys under his weight because matchmaking mentality was different. Louis could’ve defended against heavier opponents all 26 defenses. There were more than enough fighters out there for that.

It’s worth noting that Conn gave Louis his toughest fight during his reign (according to Louis and many observers).

Have you even seen wrestlers from Louis and Listons time? They were massive. The dominant champions of old did not represent the higher echelon of human size of their time. Recent HW champions on the other hand have usually been the biggest people in the room, and are closer to the higher echelon of human size.

The average height increase for a HW champion seems to have doubled the pace of height increase for all humans.

 

The 90% of this bible that you wrote is irrelevant with my post....
Liston was not a case of a fighter cutting weight in order to improve the stamina,liston looked inflated at 218 pounds and was clearly in his limit. He was perfect at 210 pounds does not matter the era where he fought

 

He was tall and thick in other areas, that biography (which also bizarrely claimed that Moore took a dive against Marciano) for some reason decided to spend like a couple pages talking about this.

 

Marciano's speed is underated, watch him in exchanges with Walcott & Charles & others he switched up on his speed & volley patterns & beat them to the punch. My point was when a fighter has an advantage like Height or reach or a disadvantage like height or reach you see them exaggerated, I remember them saying Cooney was 6-7 & 6"8 and he was 6"5 also Vital they had him listed at 6"9.

I dont think these advantages are always advantages & I dont believe disadvantages mean as much as the will of the fighter.

James Toney was 5"9 not fast just smart when he did what the Big punchers like Tyson & Lennox could not when he went to the body against Evander & stopped him. David Tua was pretty slow and at 5"10 short but he did very well because of his strength & chin.

I dont think we can argue with success in an era but each era has its own set of good & bad.

The Roman military was possibly the greatest on hand & foot ever, but they could not compete with modern equiptment of the American military? Sword to sword they might do very well.

The heavyweights are a different set of circumstances because the size has been more of a superheavyweight division & the heavyweight division is a combo of about 190lbs to 215. The thing is out of the Superheavyweights how many were great, George Foreman 6"3 220 +,Lennox 6"5 245lbs, Vlad 6"6 245lbs, Vitali? Valuev ? 7" 300lbs? Fury? would you bet the house that Joe Louis 6"1 or Ali 6"2 would lose to any of them?

Guys like 5"8 Sam Langford & 5"8 Joe Choynski KO'd boxing legends of the day but could we be sure they could beat the top cruiserweights today?(who I believe are an excellent batch) I think we will see the top 3 cruisers move up to challenge Joshua, Wilder etc after they sort out their bussiness.

I dont know the answers but I am a big proponent of the human will,heart & desire. I recently watched a video of a one-armed catcher in a high schooll league baseball game & was amazed that he was better than most with 2-arms

 

Just my take:
Would it be fair to say that many people (such as myself) rate Liston too highly because:
1. the video footage is of a fairly decent quality, and he looks good?
2. He definitely wasn't tiny?
3. The myths (proved or disproved, or.. mostly unconfirmed...) are fun?
4. He was a legitimate badass?
5. Some of us love a good story?
Give us Liston fans a break, yo.

 

Today I learned that Marciano was fast and James Toney was slow.

Will this education ever stop? The sky is the limit.

 

Not as many as the people who rate him to low .... Yes give us Liston fans a break yo

 

Cleveland Williams had noticeably longer arms than Sonny which gave Liston some early trouble, and the television announcer makes note of that during the action. Much of Sonny's wingspan was in a long collarbone (broad shoulders), but the Big Cat's best shot was his left hook, and his straight punches didn't have the extension of Ali's. Cleveland's hand speed did give Machen (with two healthy arms) more trouble than the slower Liston (when Eddie had a severely impaired right).

Ali also had longer arms than Sonny, and knew how to use that length.

Randy Gordon promoted a good concept on ESPN's Top Rank Boxing during the 1980's. Instead of just measuring overall fingertip to fingertip wingspan, measure jab length from end of collarbone to end of arm. It never took hold, having no boxing tradition to support it, but it would have been a fine additional standard for comparing physical dimensions.

Speaking of body measurements, particularly collarbone length for any physical culturists here, the first Mr. Olympia Larry Scott was also the first of three bodybuilders to defeat Schwarzenegger in competition. As winner of the first two Mr. Olympia titles, he was actually noted for having narrow shoulders, yet repelled successor Sergio Oliva (Arnold's last bodybuilding conqueror) to defend that title in 1966 before retiring (correctly stating he had nothing left to accomplish in bodybuilding - his conquests would win the next ten Mr. Olympias). At around 180, Frank Zane (the other bodybuilder to defeat Schwarzenegger in competition, and probably the lighest Mr. Olympia winner) was noted for his broad shoulders and narrow waist. Steroids do not explain long or short collarbones, height, pelvic width, arm length from ends of collarbone and so forth.

In boxing, measurements like reach tend to be exaggerated. Forget published tales of the tape where Cleveland Williams and Sonny Liston are concerned. Look at the footage, and listen to the ringside announcer talking about Liston's logistical issue in getting past the Big Cat's clearly longer arms. (Nobody could maximize reach like Ali though.) If you want an example of a tall HW with notably short arms for his height, I've seen the 6'5" Wepner's reach listed at just 72 inches. That would explain a great deal about the crude style of stand up infighting he used with all those rabbit punches. (Chuck's best legal punch was a right to the ribs, and he hit Ali with a lot of those. Wepner was hopelessly overmatched with Ali, but like forthcoming HW challenger Lyle, he fought very intelligently against the younger GOAT. It continues to amaze me that the first two challengers of Muhammad's second reign were actually older than he.)

 

Great post Anubis...great to have you back...and speaking of Lyle, I sure had him ahead at the time of that 11th round stoppage...ol' Ronnie boy fought a particularly intelligent fight IMO, and I thought at the time that he was a little unlucky to have that fight stopped, and I was vindicated in this regard, considering that he withstood far more punishment in his subsequent 2 bouts...he was hit much harder by Earnie Shavers in their war, and the Foreman bout of course, is legendary in how much punishment he took before he folded before GF's onslaught. At any rate, I thought that the ref was in waaay too much of a hurry to stop the action...just more crooked, partisan officiating for Ali, as both Jimmy Young and Ken Norton would later experience.

 

Liston may not have had an 84" reach, but it says above "not 80" like everyone says"...IF 84" is wrong, he was somewhere right around 80", like the 80.5 claimed above.
Very plausible for long arms & broad chest-Shavers was slightly shorter & listed at 80", a very long but not nearly unheard of 8" "ape factor" (wingspan greater than height).

GCC, very nice posts!
But head size is broadly correlated with height & bone structure. Guys 5' 5" tend to have somewhat smaller skulls than men 6' 4". Price has a small head for his size, but you do not think it is small for an average sized man, right?

Also-Bummy addresses his dimensions too-I have never seen Marciano listed as more than 5' 10 1/2". And he likely was shorter. See him in photos facing Ali in the computer fight, he is dwarfed.

But much more inaccurate is saying Rocky's weight was "abnormal even for his time".
That is totally wrong. Look up an average HW for late 40'-s-1955, or check his weight against many he fought. Moore, Charles were LHWs before, most guys fought in the Cruiserweight ranges, Rocky's self-declared ideal weight of 187/188 (which he leaned down to) was very ordinary for the time.