Why is history full of fighters who moved through multiple weight classes and even knocked down/KO'd bigger fighters.... ....but in modern day boxing, it's become harder for people to come through the weight classes and dominate. Why??
I don't know, but there's a degree of nostalgia when thinking about it. The top fighters fought many times every year, basically once every couple of months. The best fighters fought each other all the time. They didn't make weight out to be the most significant factor in every fight. Henry Armstrong held the featherweight, lightweight and welterweight titles simultaneously FFS! Now we're lucky if the best guys fight twice a year, the best rarely fight each other, and weight is the most significant factor in the bloody sport.
But that would mean you had to be even closer to the weight you fight at, which theoretically would make weight jumping even harder as you wouldn't be able to drain yourself and wouldn't allow fighters to start at lower weights.
He's the reason for the thread. Because all people say is 'he's too small, he's gonna be overpowered' But then you look through history and you have guys starting off at pretty low weights and ending up with wins at heavyweight or someone like Duran knocking down world class middleweights.
Fighters never weighed what they had to in order do get into a division. Examples are Joe Walcott who sometimes weighed 100 pounds less then their opponent or Georges Carpentier who started at flyweight and eventually fought Jack Dempsy for the Heavyweight Title. I think it also has to do with fighters of the past weren't as technically skilled as the fighters today but could overcome size difference by using speed and reflexes. James Toney would be a perfect example today, he can hang with the heavyweights even out of shape because he has speed and reflexes. It makes it very hard to hit him cleanly but he also doesn't have very good footwork or stamina but if he did I could see him UD Wlad.
