Heavyweights Average Height: Ring Top 10 1956-2010. Very interesting

Id go along with the 90s cut off point.

Still though, I dont think its a co-incidence that the division has been dominated by SHW's for the past 20 years.

The best up and comers are nearly all over 6'4 at least(Price,Fury,Helenius,Wilder,Pulev)

Anthony Joshua who just won the Olympics is 6'6

I think the era of the 6'2 220lbs heavyweight is over, at least at the highest level

 

No one has said people have evolved.

Training knowledge in the other hand.....

If you want to believe that somehow,boxing is the only sport to not have evolved in the last 50 years then,theres not much else I can say

 

Aww, the lil guy got nothing left to do than troll. Link has already been provided. I can't teach you how to open it and read it too.

 

I don't remember you posting anything worthy of reading.

 

I think that a few boxers have better training, the rest are lifting stones and drinking their own urine like JMM. There aren't enough Emanuel Stewards and Freddie Roachs to go around. A handful of top guys get the best that money can buy and that's it. Even some guys at the top aren't training as well as they should, or they are trying unproven experimental fitness methods and diets.

As for putting Le Bron James into a basketball team in the sixties, I think he'd be in good company with either Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain.

And while Jesse Owens would lose to Usain Bolt in the 100 meter dash, I think Bolt would lose to Owens in the hurdles and long jump. Owens was more of an all around track athlete like Jim Thorpe in an era when people didn't specialize the way they do now, and competing in multiple events was encouraged.

As for George Best, there are a lot of modern players with unhealthy drug habits. There isn't a year that goes by that some major athlete isn't busted for cocaine, marijuana, DUI, or something else.

Jack Dempsey isn't really even the most skilled boxer of his generation. He's the great puncher. Guys like Gene Tunney would be a better example of the quality of his time and if there were any footage of Harry Greb all the better. Still, Dempsey was quite a bit better than a toughman competitor. His bob and weave alone is pretty highly advanced. I'm not saying that guys in the '10s and '20s were as good as it gets skill wise. Boxing wasn't professional and was even outlawed until the 1890s but by the early '30s I think we have modern boxing. In Dempsey's time the mid teens to late 20s it was nearly complete and a lousy boxer doesn't beat Jack Sharkey and Tommy Gibbons no matter how tough he is. If he were fighting today, he'd be the champ of the Cruiserweight division, and maybe put on some weight to fight real heavies. He'd beat some of the less talented guys, earn some respect, and get his head handed to him by the Klitschkos.

Let's not forget our history. There were big guys back when Dempsey and Louis were champs, and Dempsey and Louis beat them.

1891-04-27 Bob Fitzsimmons vs Abe Coughle 160 lbs vs 230 lbs KO2
1892-04-26 Bob Fitzsimmons vs Charles Puff 155 lbs vs 230 lbs KO2
1892-09-07 James J. Corbett vs John L. Sullivan 178 lbs vs 212 lbs KO21
1900-04-30 Bob Fitzsimmons vs Ed Dunkhorst 170lbs vs 260 lbs KO2
1916-12-12 Sam Langford vs Battling Jim Johnson 191 lbs vs 224 lbs KO12
1919-04-02 Jack Dempsey vs Tony Drake 197 lbs vs 257 lbs KO1
1919-07-04 Jack Dempsey vs Jess Willard 187 lbs vs 245 KO3
1925-01-30 Tommy Gibbons vs Tiny Jim Herman 179 lbs vs 225 lbs KO3
1932-12-06 Mickey Walker vs Arthur De Kuh 175 lbs vs 223 lbs KO1
1934-06-14 Max Baer vs Primo Carnera 209 lbs vs 263 lbs KO11
1935-06-25 Joe Louis vs Primo Carnera 196 lbs vs 260 lbs KO6
1941-03-21 Joe Louis vs Abe Simon 202 lbs vs 254 lbs KO13
1942-01-09 Joe Louis vs Buddy Baer 206 lbs vs 250 lbs KO1
1942-03-27 Joe Louis vs Abe Simon 207 lbs vs 255 TKO6

Furthermore, let's also remember our recent history, when Michael Spinks, the light heavyweight champion beat Larry Holmes twice and then battered Gerry Cooney around.

1987-06-15 Michael Spinks vs Gerry Cooney 208 lbs vs 238 lbs KO5
2003-03-01 Roy Jones Jr vs John Ruiz 193 lbs vs 226 lbs UD12
2007-04-14 Ruslan Chagaev vs Nikolay Valuev 228 lbs vs 319 lbs MD12
2009-11-07 David Haye vs Nikolay Valuev 217 lbs vs 316 lbs MD12

Skill counts for a lot. Besides, there is a trade off between size, strength, and speed. The optimal weight for an athletic heavyweight should probably be around 215-220. Larger, and you take shots better, but might have trouble slipping and blocking the punches of faster smaller guys. Mike Tyson was 5' 10", shorter and with less reach than Joe Frazier, but he was fast. By many accounts, he didn't hit as hard as George Foreman, Earnie Shavers, or David Tua but his speed, especially the way he could torque his whole body into a shot made the difference. In comparison, guys like Valuev who can't spin and rotate their body like that can only weakly arm punch.

One final history lesson, John L. Sullivan was 5'10" and frequently fought in the 220s and 230s. Jack Johnson was 6' 1/2" and would have been a natural heavyweight today too fighting most of his career between 205 and 242. Joe Louis was 6' 2" with a 76' reach and mostly fought between 200 and 205 lbs. He'd just have to lift a couple of weights, put on about ten pounds and he might be champ again. Remember he beat Carnera, Simon, and Baer who were all bigger than the Klitschkos, so he has the punching power and the durability to compete at the modern level. Boxers didn't get smaller after Sullivan and Johnson; so Dempsey and Louis weren't the biggest fighters of their time. They didn't dominate by size and strength, they dominated with speed and skill.

Harry Wills was also big enough to be a modern heavyweight.

One last thing, I'm not saying that every heavyweight from the distant past could compete at the top of todays division, just the ATGs. And I'm not even claiming they would be champ again, but they would be contenders and in the mix.

 

This doesn't make an individual a better athlete, it only means he has been given more tools to work with. Give past and present athletes the same playing field and there will be no difference because we have not evolved, my friend.

And the reason super heavies are dominating now is because skills have fallen off. Of course a good big man beats a good little one. But more skills and stamina vs a good big man and its not the same fight.

 

Yet you respond to all my posts. What a loser!! :yep

 

Well unless you can actualy get in a time machine then your point is mute.

Yes, if Joe Louis had been born 70 years later and had grown up with modern training habits,and modern knowledge of nutrition and modern training techniques, then yes he probably would have been a champ.

He'd have probably been 15 lbs heavier and considering that people now are taller than in his day, he'd prob be more like 6'4.

But you couldnt just take him as he was and put him in the ring with a Klitschko.

I think Byrd,Chambers etc have great skills, they were and are just too small to beat the good big guys.

Wlad didnt destroy both of them because he was so much more skilled.

Vitali didnt beat Adamek all over the ring because he was so much more skilled than Adamek.

Adamek looked great and LHW and Cruiser but when moved up to fight a real modern SHW he got crushed.

Size makes a BIG difference

 

My point is Valid unless you can prove otherwise. And you're using select fighters to represent the whole era of big men. The Klits, Lewis, Bowed, they all compete in any era because of their skills. I'm not saying they're bad fighters, only that they represent a small fraction of fighter who are bigger but don't have any real skills in comparison to past fighters.

 

What happened to sports like football and basketball in the past 50 years was television. TV money poured into the sports and baseball players didn't have to work a second job down at the plant and could train when they weren't playing. At the same time, the talent pool expanded as more people became fans. I'd argue that boxing was already an internationally popular sport with a huge pool of talent to draw on by that time, and prize fighting had evolved economically to support thousands of professionals annually, with gyms in every town; so the new television money didn't have the same effect on boxing.

What did change from a health point of view is that the world grew about three inches since ww2. We eradicated most early childhood diseases that were stunting people's growth, and advances in farming meant that we could suddenly feed billions more people. Combine that with the about a billion new people moving into the middle class from the developing world, and they suddenly have the leisure to play sports like the first world countries. We've expanded our talent pool to places like South American and Africa. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union collapses and all the amateurs they wouldn't let compete on the international scale turned pro. It's sort of the equivalent of what happened in sports when the color barrier dropped.

 

Tyson Fury is only 24 so there's still hope that he'll gain a little skill before he retires and stop being the poor man's Klitschko.

Deontay Wilder looks strong and athletic, and probably has the best chance of all the guys you named of being a future champion, but he's fought 25 bums and is way overprotected. He should have stepped up his competition a couple of fights ago, unless his handlers know something we don't, like he has a weak chin or some other deficiency. Time will tell.

Robert Helenius is 28 with only 17 fights to his record. If he were the real deal he'd have done more by this point. Yeah, he's got a big amateur background but he's not exactly Rigondeaux. He's got a split decision against Chisora and a knockout against Brewster so he's sturdy and competent, but little more.

David Price is 29 and has already amassed 13 whole victories to his credit. Where did he find the time?

Kubrat Pulev might be 17-0 but he's also 31 and doesn't have much time to show us anything, unless you mean his younger brother in which case it's too soon to tell.

Anthony Joshua looked fine in his Olympic bout where he won gold, but frankly Oleskander Usyk the heavyweight gold medalist looked better. However, again it's too soon to tell if Joshua will amount to anything.

I sincerely doubt that these are the best "up and comers" in heavyweight boxing. They are just the best super heavies and by using them as your example you've proven the point of everyone in this thread who've claimed that super heavies are slow, clumsy, fat, unathletic, and unskilled compared to the slightly smaller heavies.