Heavyweights at 6ft and under today. Dead meat?

Not dead meat but very unlikely to become the #1 Heavyweight. (RJJ did not achieve that.) While there are 6 foot 5+ champions who know how to use their size sub 6 foot fighters are really going to struggle.

 

You still have a lot of blown up middleweights that just really stopped doing there road work like James Toney. James is 5"9 but James did expose the limited skill level of the fat or overmuscled boys at the advanced age of 38, Peter,Rahman, and was the 1st to stop Evander in a while and since and with body shots.
...and Dwight Qawi at 5"7 and overloaded with weight showed against Big George Foreman that if he were a puncher it may have been a different fight. I also remember 6' sub-200 lb Jerry Quarry beat a slew of the feared giants of his era such as Lyle,Mac Foster,Spencer,Mathis,Merritt, and giant puncher Shavers

Adamek is not short but I am not sure if he carrys the 1000psi power that the 5"11 (freak)188lb Marciano does in fact not sure that many of the big guys did. Lennox Lewis had great power but was KO'd clean in 2 fights and never stopped a man after 8 rds, so I am not sure how Lennox would do with a solid 15rd Heavyweight with power.

A king is a King in his own kingdom and as a rule bigger could be better but you still have the exceptions to the rule like Tom Sharkey who was not a great fighter, Sam Langford, Marciano,...Joe Louis and Dempsey were about 6"1.5 and 200 or so but they had explosive power, David Haye is possibly the only crusier with that kind of one-punch firepower but Dave has not shown the ability to take it or the skill or combo effectiveness of a Louis or the toughness or killer spirit of Jack Dempsey, nor the relentless one puch power and never-ending stamina of Marciano

There are men who are short that compensate, Tua was 5"10 and if he had a better work ethic and slimmed down to have a better work-rate may have made champ, he fought a survival fight vs Lewis, something that Louis,Marciano and Dempsey would have not. They would have went for that chin relentlessly, especially with the knowledge that medium class punchers like McCall and Rahman put him out for 10

My answer would be if I had to pick a heavyweight based on size it would be a conditioned fighter like the Klitschko's but as far a natural punching power and other factors if I had to pick from the past and pluck the best the average size heavy's have always dominated the big men

If Louis, Marciano,Dempsey,Langford were born today they would more than likely be taller and bigger. It hard to train today without the added muscle growth that is unique for the modern heavyweight alone but we have seen the negative effects such as lack of stamina, lack of late power and boring-lean-fests.

 

So? I'll take Lewis, Klitschko and Klitschko over the 180lb contenders of the 40s and 50s.

 

I wouldn't want to fight in heavyweight division if i were that height. It's too big disadvantage. I'm 6'1 and i still wouldn't.

 

I had hope in Povetkin, he didn't turned up quite as good as I hoped he will though... His power is not all that impressive. Still would like to see him vs a Klitschko.

 

I'm 6'3 200lbs, but I wouldn't fight at heavy (super heavy in ams) unless I was at least 220lbs. A superheavyweight division is the wrong solution, the problem is guys moving up who shouldn't

 

At 6 feet tall and 200 pounds, Marvis Frazier was an excellent long range stylist. Papa Joe tried to remold Marvis in the image of the old man, with disastrous consequences against a peak Holmes and Tyson. But against powerful super heavyweights 6'4" James Broad, 6'4" Joe Bugner, 6'4" Bonecrusher Smith, plus the 6'5" Jose Ribalta, the 6'5" Funso Banjo, the 6'5" also ran David Starkey, and the 6'3" Philipp Brown, Marvis went 7-0, winning against the six name opponents by decision. He competed very well against half a dozen modern sized super heavyweights. (Ribalta was by MD, Banjo had the referee as sole judge, but Broad, Bugner, Smith and Brown were all by UD.)

Earnie Shavers is six feet tall. He chopped down the biggest contender of the late 1970s in Tiger Williams, and blew out his heaviest opponent, 245 pound Joe Bugner in two. Earnie was as low as 203 as late as the first match with Henry Clark in 1976. Size was no kind of protection against the kind of firepower he carried.

 

at this skill level, yes


all these heavyweights are all bulky, probably from lifting weights. The great heavyweights grew into their body naturally.


These days if theres a person for a perfect heavyweight body build, they will find their way to the football field. In America that is.

 

Like the Foreman fights never happened , and the Lyle and Mac Foster did.

 

Short but true. At least until weigh-ins will occur immediately prior to the fights.

 

If this were true then NBA players and people looking like them would dominate the heavyweights. Size matters but after a certain size, it stops mattering. Throughout history, big boxers have been KTFO by smaller HW boxers.

Guys like Marciano and Dempsey have shown that once you hit 180-190, your frame is potentially big enough to generate power that will starch a fighter of ANY size. Going from 220 to 250 lbs, or even 300 lbs, does not suddenly make your chin get 20-40% stronger.

Really tall and/or heavy guys have some disadvantages too, they are less mobile, a bigger target, slower, find it hard to hit smaller crouching fighters, are vulnerable to inside fighting, tend to have less stamina in the later rounds etc.

I would back a 6ft 200 lbs guy with great boxing skill over a 250 lbs 6'7 guy with good boxing skill.

 

Imagine Shavers vs Wlad.

 

No, but low-class unskilled small guys are dead meat.

Unfortunately, short phenomenons like Frazier, Tyson & Marciano* are nowhere to be seen in this dreadful era.

*I believe that a modern Marciano would be 205lbs & be more than good enough to defeat both Klits.

 

As as good as an athlete that Marciano was, he would still be like Haye and Holyfield, in the fact that it wasn't his best fighting weight. Holyfield was always kind of weak and got man handled around big strong heavyweights like the klits. i still think he beats them both though.