Had Ike not gone to prison...

How about, "Had Ike never used steroids...." Let's see....incredible physical specimen ('roids), mentally deranged ('roids), ect, ect....

Hmmm...take away the roids (and the muscles that come with them) and you have.....Tony Ayala!

 

Pretty much, Sanders was a far less formidable force than Ike and he had him knocked down (not officially but he was down)

Tell me about Henry Flakes though Suzie, you mentioned him earlier in the thread.

And yeah, Ike was probably on roids. To have THAT much muscle and then to be able to throw 80 punches a round for 12 is unnatural.

 

Armstrong and Marciano weren't the mountain of muscle that Ike was. The chance of Ike being natural when you take a look at his size/stamina is slim.

I'm not saying that steroids alone turned Ike into such a monster fighter, he was a freak. But he probably used them.

 

How did boxing's most impressive physiques preceding the advent of steroids and other artificial and synthetic growth enhancers stack up to the muscular development which became more prevalent during the modern 12 round era?

No, Marciano was not the mountain of muscle Ibeabuchi was, and Rocky worked out with weights and other strength developing exercises from an early age. Jersey Joe Walcott was also a highly dedicated trainer who was naturally bull-shouldered, but not bodybuilder defined.

Carnera's growth enhancer was acromegaly, while Max Baer simply had an impressive shoulder to waist skeletal ratio. but again, neither had bodybuilder class muscular definition. Randy Turpin was a dedicated weight lifter, one of the very few world class boxers of his day to train with weights. Although well built, he was hardly musclebound. I just can't buy the widespread introduction of free weights into contemporary boxing training as the sole reason for the proliferation of heavily muscled physiques today. Jim Jeffries did not look like Ibeabuchi, despite his awesome physical prowess and fanatical conditioning regimen.