Heavyweights: Is Size Overrated?

I think nowadays it is, because the last small guy to actually dominate was Mike, and that was in a time when there were only a few 6' 5" heavyweights. And he did it for a very short time only.
Holyfield, despite being artificially enhanced, never really dominated the division. He was always there, but more like in an on/off capacity.
And then the mention of Byrd, who basically got lucky once against a 6' 5"+ guy, with a come from behind injury win, and didn't do paticularly well against others.

You certainly don't have to be a monster size HW, but 6' 5"+ is probably needed to be able to really dominate a division, together with skills and power I might add.

 

Anthony Joshua is Povetkins son.

 

must be adopted then.

Size brings advantages in diminishing returns, obviously due to proportions, as you progress up the weight divisions, explaining why the divisions widen out in weight range on the way up.

Excessive size brings disadvantages too as you get bigger, obviously, in a heavily cardio sport.

 

The vast majority of super tall HWs seemed to be quite deficient in the chin category
with the exception of Valuev, and even little Haye made him dance.

 

being bigger means the hearts pushed harder to force blood up to the brain. brain starts losing it, its lights out twice as fast.

 

You're not going to see any 6 foot 220lbs guys dominate the division ever again.

Theres a reason why the HW division has essentially been dominated by guys who are 6'4+ and 240lbs+ for about 20 years

 

Povetkin would DESTROY Joshua.

 

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9KbV9Owb5oE/maxresdefault.jpg

Dumb ....

 

Isn't the point here that with the cruiserweight limit now at 200lbs and with "weight management" honed to a fine art, that only someone who is 215lb+ lean is genuinely a heavyweight and that generally correlates with being 6'4" and above?

Most people 6'2" or less can make cruiserweight or lower unless they are (a) unusually heavily built, (b) out of shape, or (c) unnecessarily overly muscled for a boxer.

Everyone knows Mike Tyson was a physical freak to carry so much lean mass at 5'10", but at 215-220lbs Tyson was still on the cusp of being able to drain to 200lb.

David Tua is another example of a shorter guy with that massive Polynesian build, but Tua actually competed at the 200lb limit at the Olympics and was only 201lbs when he made his pro debut as a heavy. This would make him a small cruiserweight at the time, only having to cut 1lb.

It was different with same day weigh-ins and everyone over 175lb or even 190lb being a heavyweight, but these days unless you are massive you simply aren't a genuine "heavyweight" anyway and can fight at a lower weight class.

 

Smaller guys can beat guys in a one-off or short term scenario. In the short run, pretty much anything could happen.

Over the long run, it doesn't work like that. The accumulated mileage of fighting bigger fighters most every time adds up in a career context. I don't think we'll see any 210 pounders as a career HW for 40, 50 fights, let alone a dominant one.

Fight as a CW, then strategically move up for a few bouts? Different story.