While looking for Sonny Liston's tale of the tape on the IBHOF site, I noticed some trends among time periods. From Sullivan to Marciano (19 fighters), the average reach of a heavyweight boxing champion was ~75.724". From Patterson to the 90's Bruno (this is including all of the ABC champs, for a total of 30 fighters. Although Foreman is listed twice, I only counted him once), the average reach was 78.6". The only fighters pre-Patterson to have an 80"+ reach were Willard at 83" and Carnera at 85.5". From Patterson to Bruno there were 15. That's truly a huge difference, even when you note that this is comparing an era of 30 champions to one of 19, that there were almost 8 times as many champions with monster reaches. One of the more interesting things I noted was that, although there was a smaller average reach for fighters pre-Patterson, only three fighters had a reach of less than 74", Corbett at 73", Fitzsimmons at 71.75", and Marciano himself at 68". On the other hand, Patterson, Tyson, Johannson, and Seldon had sub-74" reaches from Patterson to Bruno. My conclusion from this data is that the mean of champions' reaches increased because the high-end ranges rose drastically - there were still roughly the same number of guys with T-Rex arms running around It would be interesting to have information about the last ten years, with guys like the Klitschkos and Valuev in the mix. The most shocking thing I learned in viewing this page? Buster Douglas was only an inch shorter than Lewis, and he had the same reach. Any argument about Lewis being a "bigger, better version of Douglas" can now be disproved - he's only a "better" version of Douglas!
I really don't have a lot to comment on in this thread other than it reminds me of something I don't like. HBO's arm length reading, and no mention of reach. If two fighters fought wight their feet parallel and backs against a wall, this arm length would be important. Since fighters turn their bodies into punches, the width of their bodies also comes into play.
