Why were "small" men able to dominate the HW division?

1. Not Carl Lewis was the tallest good sprinter before Bolt.
But he was a tall sprinter the 6'2" is tall for a sprinter.
(Plus Bolt is great 100/200 m sprinter but what's his best indoor 50/60
m ?) Otherwise the jamaican tall Powell competed in the elite before Bolt.
2.Ok say a top bodybuilder who is stronger than a smaller(by muscle
mass) top weightlifter or powerlifter !
6. I say again Holyfield wasn't the only one bulked fighter.
wladimir klitschko is bulked
briggs is bulked
vitali klitschko was bulked
Lewis was bulked
Ruddock was bulked
Golota was bulked
Wilder is bulked.
Akinwande was bulked
But you don't talk about these fighters.Why what do you want
a 180 pounds Holyfield vs. a bulked 245 pounds Lewis or Bowe ?
You aren't objective in Holyfield case at all.


Basically the 213 pounds Holyfield was better against Bowe
like the 217 lbs version.
He could knock Bowe down in the sixth and 3X66-65 was
for Holyfield.It(Bowe-Holyfield III.) was a lucky
Bowe win because Holyfield wasn't healthy and was very tired.
This proves 217 pound and the 213 lbs. Evander was better than
Bowe.
All in all an objective man can accept a muscular and healthy
Holyfield was very impressive against Bowe.
Holyfield didn't wanna compete with a skinny body in the modern PED era like
Ruddock,Bowe,Lewis,Wilder,w. klitschko,Briggs.What's the difference?
They are bulked fighters just a good Holyfield was better obviously
he beat better fighters.

 

VVMM, you do not seem to understand much of what i am arguing.

Powell was also 6' 2", this contradicts nothing I said. It is just not near 6' 5" & Bolt. I think very tall men have more trouble putting together the corrdination to dominate, such as 6' 10" pitcher Randy Johnson, but modern training & working on technique can mazimize potential when more can go wrong with a long motion.

I do not know what you are saying or asking with suggesting a bodybuilder stronger & larger than a top lifter.
But the former usually will not be stronger, assuming both are the top weight categories. Because one trains for strength, the other size & proportions. BUT both will get plenty of the other traits, 7 both still very strong & big.

I have *no idea* why you why you preceive any bias from me against Holyfield.

When did I ever suggest he should fight lighter & not be bulked?
I suggested it helped.

I also said he USED PEDS & I condemn that.
Are you being sloppy in just saying "bulked" when you mean to imply the others drugged themselves too?
IF they did cheat i condemn it, but the evidence is not there.

Sidenote: at 6' 7" 219 (for last fight) Wilder is not very bulky.

I cannot tell what this means: 3X66-65

Holyfield was not better than Bowe in their fights, but IF healthy & IF he fought smarter, yes he would have won 2 & was the better fighter overall.

And better than all you mentioned except Lewis, who fought good competition.

but through age 30 Holyfield was great, as he was vs. Tyson.

BUT anyone who CHEATS & takes unnatural, unfair advantage should be downgraded.

He was very tough, great heart, skills...He just would not have been so great against the biggest & best ONLY with modern weightlifting & trained by an 8 time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney

 

tyson,shavers,holyfield and frazier and a motivated and in shape tua would still rule.bonavena and stander still tough as nails and a nightmare today.i do not see all the extra weight or height translating into awesome punchers like the ones above.

 

in response to POWERPUNCHER'S COMMENT:"I think there's an awful lot of doubt Tyson could beat Bowe or Lewis, given he said Lewis would always be 'too big' for him. And that he never faced any opponent nearly as good as either. And that he lost to Holyfield who in turn lost the series to both men".

"I would beat anybody in my prime on water, vegetables and vitamins"-
Mike Tyson ______ http://www.express.co.uk/sport/boxi...rothers-I-d-flatten-them-both-says-Mike-Tyson
BoxingInsider: In what fights were you at your very best? When did you feel the best in the ring, the sharpest?
Lennox Lewis: “Definitely the Tyson fight."___BoxingInsider: When do you think Tyson was at his very best?
Lennox Lewis: “I’d have to say even before I turned professional. He was like a whirlwind, knocking everyone out. At that point, he was at his best".____HOW CAN ANYONE SAY THAT TYSON COULD NOT HAVE BEATEN LEWIS WHEN THEY FORM THEIR OPINION BASED ON A FIGHT WHERE ONE FIGHTER PEAKED (LEWIS)AND THE OTHER ONE WAS GREATLY LESSENED?
​

 

Like the old saying goes.."It's not the size of the dog in the fight...it's the size of the fight in the dog!"...

 

There have always been tall sprinters, and short ones.
Carl Lewis was 6'2, Linford Christie was 6'2. They were fast. Merlene Ottey was 5'9, tall for a woman. She was fast.
Bolt just happens to be the tallest, AND the fastest.
He didn't change sprinting. I'm not sure why people have made a big deal of his height and the alleged "turnover" problem, when there were always tall sprinters.
The next great male sprinter might be short.
In womens, there's 5 foot Shelly Ann Fraser.


I think the only real test there's ever been for assessing someone's sprinting potential is to line the kids up and tell them to race. Some kids are faster than others.
No one ever said "you can't be fast, you're tall". fast is fast.

 

As for boxing, the 190 pounds didn't have any choice but to fight at heavyweight. In fact, anyone over 175 pounds, or over 158 pounds if you go back farther, had to fight at heavyweight.
The ambitious one had to learn to beat those big guys, or survive them, or have managers who could steer them away from them.

Then, there was less belief in - or knowledge of - increasing muscle mass up with weight lifting, and, until the late 1940s, or '50s, anabolic steroids weren't really available, and until the 1970s their usefulness in sport or building muscle was still being debated even by some doctors.

If the circumstances were the same now, the result would be the same.

 

Some thought he was, some thought he wasnt. The majority though were of the opinion that Jeffries was head and shoulders above his competition, which is ultimately why he retired. Even Johnson, Langford etc were not ranked in the same league (at this time). The majority also thought that the top contenders like Ruhlin, Sharkey etc were not in the same league as Fitz, Corbett or Sullivan. Not really a surprise when you consider that a past it Fitzsimmons absolutely ripped throught the top contenders of the day. Many considered that the days of the bareknuckle era was where the toughest and best fighters fought and that the newer large purse prizes, contrived conditions etc meant that the "modern" fighters were not of the same standard. I can see the argument both ways to be honest, some of it does make sense.

i think that the rule changes had a lot to do with this, or at least quite a bit. Possibly also increased professionalism in training, though i dont know enough about the really early days of fighting. Still, there is no doubt that the were plenty of fighters around who were bigger than both Johnson and Jeffries.

It is funny how even now the media really shapes and alters perceptions of things. For instance, we often hear about the great athlete Jefrries was, an olympic standard runner etc. Yet the only contemporary article i have found on him as a runner was the beach sprint he had with Jim Corbett. Corbett actually Beat him! In fact, corbett was probably the best 'athlete' of the early times.

I would have thought he was smaller (or the same size as) than Jeffries, Johnson, Sullivan, Baer, Carnera, and Willard. That is 6 out of 13 lineal champions or about 25 of the 50 years worth of world title reigns. That makes him about average size a world champion doesnt it?

I dont think that there is any doubt that Ali was at his best in the 60s pre lay off. Size wise, i dont think he was anything outstandingly big that would describe him as a superheavyweight at this time. Certainly he would be dwarfed by Carnera or Willard and much smaller than Contenders like Trammell, Hoff etc.

He is an interesting case though, Ali. He is the probably the fastest ever. If you do make the superheavy link, he is the first skilled superheavy ever (i do see where you are coming from with that claimed). Yet, despite all this, if he didnt have the greatest chin of all time, he would have been only an average fighter and quite possibly one who had been stopped by both Cooper and Banks. Two small fighters from memory.

I really think the greats are far closer than people realise. Most fights between them will not be decided by styles but by desire and hard work.

I disagree. Why would you say that Lennox/bowe was more conditioned than say someone like Joe Bugner and their were countless more. I think their approach, to be honest was very similar to Carnera's. What they were though is the more likely that they were simply the best of these fighters.

Well Tony Tucker was nearly as good as Lennox Lewis as proved when an old Tucker took him the distance. A prime tucker did last against Tyson, but realistically wasnt in the fight with Tyson for anything outside of the first round.

The Klitchskos are also interesting as well, because while they are the biggest fighters on often used as an argument for the advancement of the sport, imo, the reality of their strength lies in the fact that they always show up in absolute first class condition and never a pound overweight. It also seems clear that unlike most others i can think of whose weights fluctuate in and out of fighting trim, they are always in shape. In my opinion, their training is much closer to old school training than any of their challengers. Perhaps this helps their dominance?

i am not doubting some of the advantages of bulking up. But, Tommy Hearns won a world cruiserweight title (admittedly a dodgy one) in his 40s. Surely you dont think that a welterweight version of Tommy could have done much better do you? If weight is the be all and end all, why do fighters like Tua and many of the modern heavyweights always try to get their weights down to get into fighting trim? i believe that natural size is 10 times more important than contrived bulking up. I also believe that speed and desire is a lot more important than bulking up. Still, some times bulking up improves a fighters speed and stamina and is done when their desire is at their highest.

Why do you say they cant handle the punchers when they won more than they lost? And most of their losses were close affairs anyway.
If the 10 best Light heavyweights fought each of the 10 best Heavyweights (staying as light heavyweights), i feel pretty confident that they would come out with a share of wins. I don t think it is unthinkable that one of them would end up with the best record (assuming Wlad isnt entered). Though it also wouldnt surprise me to see the best light heavy blasted out of their by one of the lesser heavys (mixed in with wins over the best heavys).

 

Please show me the results of any failed drug tests that Holyfield took???

 

tests are EASILY faked number one,second holyfield has been lifting weights sense his teen years,he peaked at 188lb he did not starve himself to make a cruiser weight limit.the money (and fame)as always was in the heavyweights.he needed a chemical boost to be a over 200 lb.christ! he had a mr olympia and a world champion powerlifter as partners! easy access and knowledge of roid usage.ken norton was another fighter with a very fast metabolic rate,he never lifted but manged to weigh 210 naturally as well proving it was "in him" to be that way,not for evander.after over a decade of lifting if holyfield was meant to be a ripped 220lb(roid free) it would have happened years before.

 

A simplification of styles that champions range maintenance has helped the big heavyweight jab out a legacy. Everyone is playing a game that Wladimir is the best at. However, the past success of the smaller heavyweight was not merely down to the giants not knowing what a gameplan was.

Sparring with bigger men isn't good enough. Fighter's still do it today but you don't learn how to conquer them. Weight divisions have diluted the product. When an underweight, light-heavyweight Jack Dempsey had no choice but to face men upwards of 200lbs. he had to find a way to implode their natural advantages. Joe Louis used speed to zap you. Marciano was taught to fight smaller to suck you in.

Though Steve Cunningham is considered a smallish heavyweight, and was ultimately defeated by Tyson Fury, he managed to both floor and stun the 6'9" boxer as he possesses a snap to his punches which usually fades when men exceed 6'5", 250lbs. Fury is a good example of a big man with mild power. He's a capable fighter whose proportions will stop him from ever being the complete article.

David Haye could have been an exception. He had a genuine shot at defeating Wladimir but would not extend himself because he did not want to get knocked out. A tall order to win, yes, but you're not going to win the jackpot by rationing your chips. Smaller heavyweights must be all-in.

And therein lies another factor. Modern heavyweights rarely go that extra mile, that's why so many are out of shape. In Joe Frazier's Box Like the Pros he explained that "you're going to get hit and you're not going to like it." Because Smokin' Joe had no choice but to overcome himself he compensated to the point he became a monster.

A dangerous assignment, but I must favour a prime Joe over Wladimir.

Jack Dempsey? I think Wladimir loses early.

There may come a time when the quicker, more wilful and explosive smaller heavyweight returns, but for reasons stated, the landscape doesn't condone it.

 

When people say "Jeffries was hailed as a giant" back in his day, that might be true, but I think people are drawing the wrong conclusions there.
I mean, if they called him a "giant" it was all part of the hype. These were the days of circus and carnival hyperbole, they liked to use words like "giant", even if he wasn't.

George Washington stood 6'2 and Abraham Lincoln was 6'4 apparently. Both were born decades before John L Sullivan.
John Wayne was 6'4 and was born before Baer and Louis, and long before Marciano or Charles or Patterson.
There wasn't as much currency in hyping politicians and actors as "giants" though, I guess.

 

People focus on the giants of today being better than the giants of the past.

Perhaps they should be focusing on the smaller heavyweights of the past, being better than the smaller heavyweights of today.

 

Tua & others tried to be "fighting trim" often, as in not much body fat. But Tua is an example of a man who had a great deal of muscle mass for his height at whatever weight. And what is "contrived' bulk? Some do obtain more than they would with just heavy labor & good eating, & it may not benefit them. But without that hard work, training is necessary to get stronger.

Extra muscle, to a point & depending upon the fighter, tends to help.

I see no reason to believe many if any top LHWs today would beat the top HWs AT that weight. When there were less big guys, it could happen, but even so many LHWs failed to move up & take thje title: & they DID increase their weight to challenge, like Foster.

Holyfield never failed a test? Of course. But tons of things cannot even be tested FOR or reliably, designer drugs, HGH...Even IF the testing protocol is frequent, random & rigorous enough.

I would think most know this. From his wikipedia page:

"Allegations of steroid and HGH use

On February 28, 2007, Holyfield was anonymously linked to Applied Pharmacy Services, a pharmacy in Alabama that is currently under investigation for supplying athletes with illegal steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). He denies ever using performance enhancers.[38]

Holyfield's name does not appear in the law enforcement documents reviewed. However, a patient by the name of "Evan Fields" caught investigators' attention. "Fields" shares the same birth date as Holyfield—October 19, 1962. The listed address for "Fields" was 794 Evander, Fairfield, Ga. 30213. Holyfield has a very similar address. When the phone number that, according to the documents, was associated with the "Fields" prescription, was dialed, Holyfield answered.[39]

On March 10, 2007 Holyfield made a public announcement that he would be pursuing his own investigation into the steroid claims in order to clear his name.[40]

Holyfield was again linked to HGH in September 2007, when his name came up following a raid of Signature Pharmacy in Orlando, Florida.[41] As of September 2007, Signature Pharmacy is under investigation for illegally supplying several professional athletes with steroids and HGH.[42]"


This is a time where there is minimal likelihood that there is a misunderstanding & he is innocent. The "investigation" he was going to launch came to as much as OJ finding the "real killer".

 

Yeah, but the major factor I believe is that in the old days THEY HAD LESS CHOICE.

No just as seasoned professionals, but from when they were starting out too - fighters generally were more accustomed to fighting against men who might be a lot bigger (or a lot smaller) than them. There were less weight classes - so even within a weight class it was more true. - and naturally some fighters would be able to figure out a style to be competitive with bigger men out of necessity (interestingly, some of those that did so might actually have had difficulty against smaller fighters themselves.)

For a man who weighed 178 or so and really couldn't make 175, he'd have no choice but to fight the bigger heavyweights if he wanted to be rated, or else find a very clever manager to figure out another way.

If the fighters today had the same situation, we'd see a lot of guys changes their styles and a lot of surprising results, I reckon.