Freak Genetics

There are photos of Tyson at 13 where he looks nothing like that. One in particular of him next to a speed ball.

 

Liston: The most freakish enormous, long scary arms I've ever seen.
Locche: God gifted sense of awareness. Not even spider senses come close.
Cleveland Williams: Muscle Mass. 180 lbs of muscle mass at the age of 14. What a freak
Jose legra: His long ass arms is 2x longer than the longest anaconda in this world.

 

Weaver was like Norton in being muscular, but the amount iof muscle per square inch was exaggerated by their low body fat & natural definition. Also having relatively more bulk in the upper body overstates total muscle.
Weaver fought at weights ~ 207, many other boxers even then were just as muscular, but weighed more due to more body fat.
Today & for years now he would have less than an average amount of mass for a HW.

 

Hamed.

Incredibly bendy, it must have been like fighting Stretch Armstrong.

 

He said he was 13 in the picture in his book.

 

Not the point. I am just saying the picture is very flattering but there are others.

 

My dad grew up around Mike Weaver's younger brothers (triplets). He said Mike Weaver worked security at a liquor store and used to let neighborhood kids punch him as hard as they could in the gut. He offered to pay them a dollar if they could knock the wind out of him. My dad doesn't have any accounts of people earning that buck.
p.s. he said the triplets were good boxers in their own right.

 

Wilfred Benitez a world champ at 17 the guy was a freak of nature, never seen a kid have that level of fight iq and composure against a a guy like prime Cervantes.

 

Monzon

Duran

V. Klitschko

Tyson

Foreman

 

Tyson was genetics, above all the neck.

 

Rumour is he wasn't 17 there was a birth certificate for "Wilfredo" not Wilfred putting him at 19-20? from memory.

 

Marciano?

Nobody ever mentions them in these discussions but a lot of the high-stamina/high-work rate guys were probably genetically gifted.

 

I remember reading that Henry Armstrong had an irregularity in his heart that contributed to his crazy endurance.

 

Henry Cooper.

He got the good copy of his identical twin brother's genes.

 

I think Primo Carnera was a natural freak. It simply wasn’t common back then for guys to get that big and strong especially given the absence of PED’s, special diets or advanced training techniques. Furthermore, it was even more rare for an Italian man to be that large.