To be fair he's only been boxing for a year so you can't expect much lol. His reach is actually really long, he measured it on camera and it was 85 inches
Of course he is not ready-& he never would be. Being huge & really powerful is not enough if you do not have at least some skills, AND can really take a punch. And hit hard. Also as someone else pointed out, his arms are not short at all. They are really long in absolute terms. Although given his 85" reach lust be enhanced by his chest width, just fairly long-for his height. You can see in the photo above that it he has pretty long arms even for his size! You are likely fooled because thick things look shorter than thin ones. But still I cannot see an interpretation that his arms are "really short".
Muscles can help significantly, if utilized properly. Joe Louis was heavily muscled for his era. So was Holyfield. It's TRUE that muscles suck up more oxygen though, but they can also help you in the clinnches
Eh, Louis was fairly muscular for his era. Holyfield only in his upper body: his overall muscle mass, even correcting for low body fat, was not more than average. That is because normally about 60% of muscle mass is below the torso, where Holyfield was not very muscular at all-for any modern HW. We just notice the upper body much more.
