If we could see fighters from diferent eras standing next to each other?

Lots of the "small" heavyweights of the past had broad shoulders and muscled backs, they looked big and powerful from the back. I think a guy like Dempsey genuinely had a 45 inch chest. He doesn't actually look much smaller than Firpo.
Holyfield looked wider and with a bigger lean mass than Douglas, and Joe Louis was about that size.
You cant just go on weight, and up to 2 inches in height is often utterly negligible.

But Frank Bruno was HUGE, esp. in 1995, and only Carnera was a more Herculean figure in my eyes.

Lennox was a monster at 248 pounds too. I dont think he'd literally "dwarf" Joe Louis, and he'd have less height on Dempsey than Willard had, but he'd hold and clearly visible size advantage over them.
Against the under-6 foot short-limbed Marciano and Frazier you could definitely say "dwarfed".

Jim Jeffries was a big burly man. I dont think he's big as Bruno, but he was certainly a big guy.

I think people make too much of size differences, imagine small differences as more than they are.

Valuev - now there's a guy who ACTUALLY dwarfs most of his opponents. He lost to a guy who was 12 inches shorter.

Mercer-Lewis was a good example, Mercer's like 6'1 and 78 inch reach and competing well with Lewis, he looked none at all hindered by lack of height or reach. People will say, "yes, but Mercer had the bulk", but a guy like Dempsey (same height and reach) doesn't need bulk to land his quick, deadly punches. He might need bulk for other things in the fight, but he looks built right to HIT Lewis. Once you realize that Dempsey can hit Lewis, and is not some dwarf swing at Lenny's ankles, it's possible that the weight and girth gap may not be the deciding factor.
Size matters, but it's significance can be severely limited.

 

silliest thread ever with latent overtones of homosexuality.

what does any of this have to do with skill, ability and effectiveness?

sorry i got to call it like i see it.

 

I assumed the point was to say when we "imagine" a fight we should get the size difference right, because when we picture size difference it influences how we imagine the fight going.

Or maybe that's just my conscious mind rationalizing the latent homosexuality of my unconscious.

 

Just too much body fascination for me. I really don't see a translation between "ripped" or "solidness" or even reach and dimension with effectiveness in the ring. You really can't determine the better fighter with the eye test. How many gym rats ripped-to-the-bone would you pick over a "prime-rib" Tony Tubbs? Or over a short, stubby Marciano? A pear shaped Holmes? Even a beer bellied brawler like Botha? In my analysis I prefer to watch demonstrated abilities, tendencies, proclivities, et.al., not just stare at a posed ring photo and analyze the physiogomy.

 

It's an interesting topic, imo.

Let's face it, many of us (and I'm often among them) choose moderns in H2H matchups almost purely because of the size or weight of today's guys or guys of the recent past.

As they say, a good big man beats a good little man. Thus I think the topic is worth exploring.

Max Baer I think would compare very well with almost anyone today. His measurements confirm this, even though he was a fair bit lighter than someone like Klitschko or Lewis.
Baer today could easily carry 230-235 on his frame, no problem, and he would be in great shape. His brother would be slightly bigger still.

Evander blossomed into a 215 lb. real heavyweight, but someone like Joe Louis had a bigger frame. Okay, Louis looks almost slender on film, but he still weighed around 200 lbs. With that frame, Louis would be a rock-solid 220-225 today - more than big enough.

As Janitor said, Jeffries even back then would compare favourably with just about anyone, barring the massive Klitschko brothers, and possibly Lewis. Jeff was built like a brick shithouse - very "lean" at a muscular 220.

Jack Johnson would obviously be lighter than most of today's men, but his frame wasn't any smaller. He had a modern heavyweight frame, and again today could easily weigh 220 or more.

Someone like Sonny Liston, whom I believe was the early prototype for the modern heavyweights of the 70's, 80's, 90's and beyond, would today be built very similarly to someone like Hasim Rahman - very wide, with thick, dense muscle.
Until very recently, he could stand with the biggest of the modern heavyweights and not look any smaller. Ditto Ali, George Foreman, Ron Lyle etc.

About the only former champ that would be dwarfed by today's big guys would be Rocky Marciano - a guy who, even in his day, was thought to be too small to really go places.
Then again, Rocky today would weigh around 205-210 lbs. Not really small if you consider his height. If Evander could be really competitive at a weight between 208 and 218, then I'm sure The Rock could be at 205-210.

The skeletal frame of the modern heavyweight is not much (if any) bigger than the men of the past. The difference lies in the fact that modern guys have either more muscle or more fat, or a combination of the two.

Guys like Mercer and Tua were often 10-20 lbs. above their 'real' weights, mostly in the form of fat. Tua started his career at a smallish 204, yet in the end weighed as much as 245. At 245 though, he was soft and slow, and the added weight didn't help any.

Frank Bruno weighed 228 for his first fight with Tyson. He got as heavy as 245+ of pure muscle, but was much slower and more lethargic than at 228.

 

In most cases it is. As they say in sports, you can't teach size. The average top ten heavyweights today is about 6'3", with a 78" reach. I did not do the full research this, but my point is those skeletal dimensions would be huge pre 1960. Today they are average.

Today there is not a one top ten ranked heavyweight under 6', 215 pounds. Not one. In the 1960's to 1900, 6' 215 pounds is a big fighter.

A few old champion heavyweights pre 1960 were big framed men ( Jeffries, Willard, Carnera, Baer ), but most of them were cruiser weights or very small heavies, and if we add on 15 pounds, they lose speed, and stamina, and gain some fat.

Since 1990 to 2008 the #1 gun for the majority of the years has been Bowe, Lewis, Klitschko, and Klitschko. McCall and Rhaman had their moments, and there pretty big too. Moorer at 6'2" 220 pounds was averaged sized and Holyfield at 6'2" 215 pounds was small.

 

Would those measurements be considered huge pre 1960 though? Most heavyweight champs have been over 6' with about a 77 inch reach, at least from Johnson onward.

In terms of weight, the average certainly has increased over the decades...I agree.

They certainly weighed less, yes. But even in the 70's there were contenders under 200 lbs, allthough increasingly rare.
Heavyeights, imo, got substantially heavier only when the weight training phenomenon appeared on the scene.
What if those old-timers were training the same as today's guys?

For me, the early to mid 90's sparked another new breed of athlete: the athletic giant. I agree that in any era the likes of Bowe, JL Gonzalez, Lewis, the Klitschko's etc. would have been massive men. I don't think they represent the "average" yet though.

 

But I said, " The average top ten heavyweights today is about 6'3", with a 78" reach. Very few champs pre 1960 were taller or longer than this, and the ones who were lacked skills.

Pre 1960, I think the average weight of the heavyweight champion was around 200 pounds. Today it is around 230 or higher.

In the 1970's fighters who were 190-199 were not that far off from those who weighted 210 pounds. In some cases the lighter fighters were either taller or longer. However, when you are talking about 190-199 pounders vs 230+ pounders the 230+ pounders will almost always have a singificant height and reach advantage. In addition they have 30+ pounds of weight to work with in the clinches. This is hard to over come if the skills are near even. I tend to beleive the old timers would be a little bigger with modern training.

I think the first wave of change happened in the late 1970's to mid 1980's. Skilled guys like Witherpsoon, Norton, Tate, Tucker, Burno, Cooney, and Smith were cross over bigger fighters with skills. But I agree the mid 1990's took it to another level.