124, 147, 168, those all sound like completely random numbers pulled from a hat. Is there some biological/health/fitness reason why such numbers were chosen? Who came up with the original 8 classes and why? Did physicians and nutritionists recommend certain weight ranges? Does the average person of certain builds/metabolisms walk around close to certain weights naturally?
In the opder days the original 8 had different limits. During Joe Gans’s time the lightweight limit was 133. During Papke’s time the middleweight limit was 158.
The original 7 weight divisions were not classified in pounds but in stone, ( 14lbs ), and pounds as the Marquis of Queensbury Rules originated in the UK : Flyweight - 8 stone Bantamweight - 8stone 6lbs Featherweight - 9 stone Lightweight - 9 stone 9lbs Welterweight - 10 stone 7lbs Middleweight - 11stone 6lbs Heavyweight - Unrestricted Light heavyweight was added in the very early 20th Century and classified at 12 stone 7lbs. As we can see, the lighter weights were divided by approximately half a stone up to Lightweight, three quarters of a stone and the more or less a full stone.
If you look at the weight differences between the main 8 weight classes there is a logic in the way that there are incremental increases between the classes: Flyweight (112) to Bantamweight (118) = 6 pounds Bantamweight (118) to Featherweight (126) = 8 pounds Featherweight (126) to Lightweight (135) = 9 pounds Lightweight (135) to Welterweight (147) = 12 pounds Welterweight (147) to Middleweight (160) = 13 pounds Middleweight (160) to Light Heavyweight (175) = 15 pounds When they added Cruiserweight (190) they kept the original weight gap between Light Heavy and Cruiser as only 15 pounds which breaks that pattern but then they upped the limit to 200, which makes more sense to me.
It's all to do with the military height guidelines.....apparently. Let's not forget that it would be impossible for Lewis or Wlad to exist as they did in the 1950's.....this has nothing to do with them being far to big for Marciano however and is no way being used as a cop out.
Yeah I had a suspicion it might have to do with the outdated military height to weight ratio. That's obviously invalid nowadays, I think it said 6'4 guys should be 190.
