Is the high standing of big heavyweights in fantasy fights, history repeating itself?

Big men have a major disadvantage in that there is way more to hit. There are no Dempseys, Marcianos, Fraziers, etc running around now destroying guys in the cruiserweight division, but it didn't take anybody like them to knockout Lennox Lewis or Wladimir Klitschko. If a 6' 200 pound slugger with a fighter's heart and explosive power came along now, and could get past the Klitschko jab (no huge problem), he'd be champ.

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But there is a huge difference in Lewis and Wlad as far as ability. Both could fight well using their range, but one is a novice in close. Yes they are getting overated because you have to take into consideration overall ability and height doesnt mean **** if your opponent takes it away.

 

No huge problem, huh?

Maybe I should give it a try then.

 

A big man's head isn't generally that much larger than a smaller man's head, and is at any rate harder to reach or hit with power. The extra body they may display strikes me as a very neglibible disadvantage unless their arms are extremely short and can't adequately protect them from kidney shots. Plus, legitimate big men tend to be thicker boned and more resilient to body damage anyway. I really don't think it's a significant factor any way you look at it.

Brewster, Rahman and co. will never compare career-wise to the above three, but they were all legitimate 225lb men with legitimate big time punching power and/or the resilience to withstand shots without wilting. They were not small sub 200 LHWs and CWs fighting other LHWs and CWs. Until someone in the 180s actually knocks out a good superheavy it's really little more than speculation.

Where have I heard this before? You think it's "no huge problem" getting past the Klitschko jab, yet no one since 2005 has done it let alone anyone approaching 200lbs. Base your arguments on a little more hard reality please.

 

Getting down to historical facts--

Big man historically, or now, haven't proven that difficult to knock out.

The historic big men--Willard, Carnera, Buddy Baer, etc, were all slaughtered by ordinary sized fighters at some point.

It is true the modern guys haven't been ko'd by smaller men, but then they are not fighting them. One thing that is certainly true is that Lewis and the Klitschkos have not proven hard to stop by historic standards. Between them, Lewis, Wlad, and Vitali have been stopped 7 times in 147 fights, or an unimpressive 1 in 21. Dempsey, Tunney, Louis, Marciano, Ali, and Holmes together were stopped 5 times in 423 fights, or about 1 in every 84.

"When a smaller fighter ko's a good superheavyweight"

All the "good" superheavyweights prior to 1960 were ko'd by smallish men, and outpointed by a lot of other smallish men.

The difficulty with this issue is that there is such a huge gap between the performances of the modern big fellows and their historic counterparts.

My guess is the reason is that growth hormones and steroids are more of an advantage to bigger guys and distort Nature in a way that favors them.

 

"outstanding characteristics of the current/recent dominant champion"

It is always the case in almost every area than men extrapolate from the present into the future and see the future in terms of current ideology.

The 1967 computer tourney was based on the assumption that the shared characteristics of Dempsey, Louis, and Marciano--the last three dominant champions at that point--defined what dominant champions should be like. The future dominant champions have mostly been different--Ali, Holmes, Holyfield, Lewis, Wlad. Only Tyson was much like the old champs.

It is not surprising that the ascension of Lewis and Wlad births an ideology to "prove" that future champions will look like them and that they represent a great historical trend.

Ideology always works that way.

History is not so simple, and that old trickster the future will never be what we presume it will be.

 

Come on, I thought we cleared this up. We're talking skilled, athletic big men who know how to use their size advantage. Willard, Carnera, B Baer, Simon etc were neither skilled nor athletic, and in Baer's case really didn't use their size advantage well (just watch his fight against Louis to see how he immediately gives up his reach to in-fight). Of course they were slaughtered by ordinary sized fighters at some point, because they themselves were ordinary in everything but size.

The point here isn't that a smaller man couldn't potentially KO a bigger man if they hit him on the chin, but that a smaller man would have an extremely tough time landing that punch on a big man who's equally skilled, athletic and knows how to fight to his strengths. In most "historic cases" the small man was vastly more talented and skilled than his larger opponent.

Like I said above, you'll probably never see a great superheavyweight fight a smaller man (circa 180lbs) again unless there are really really exceptional reasons for them to do so. It would just be seen as too big a mismatch in every way.

Regarding Lewis and Wlad's durability, I'd say that historically Lewis has proven to be very hard to stop; he fought an enormous number of big punchers and top class fighters, many of whom were better than McCall or Rahman, and emerged victorious. His problems were due to laziness and lack of preparation, not lack of ability against good punchers. Likewise, Wladimir has proven to be very hard to stop now that he's maximised his physical abilities and minimised his weaknesses.

I'm not excusing these losses, I'm saying that they're not wholly representative of the fighters at their best, much like Dempsey's losses against Flynn and Meehan aren't represenatative of his entire career.

Well exactly. There have never been athletic, well schooled big men like Lewis and Wlad until relatively recently. They tended to be of the Tye Fields, Kevin McBride variety, without the boxing nous, the speed or the coordination to really be anything more than heavy bags for their smaller, speedier and more talented opponents.

Whatever the reason (and drugs is a possibility) we're now starting to see increasingly larger men with the skills and athleticism to eclipse their oafish forebears. To equate them, on size alone, to the big men of the past is extremely superficial reasoning.

 

Well, if you look at the history of the division as a whole, the big guys have been getting bigger every few decades or so. That has been the general trend.
(There have been big heavyweights well before Queensbury times, but they were exceptional in their rarity.)

I don't see the trend changing, ever. It never really has.
That said, there will be a point of saturation, at some point in time, where enormous size becomes a disadvantage.
I used to think the era of the athletic 300 pounder wasn't far off, but I don't think it's possible to be athletic (for boxing purposes) at that weight. It's just too much. I don't know what the celing is, but my guess is that much above 250 is just too much weight.

Yet at the same time, the period of dominance for a sub-200 pounder is clearly at an end. That is to my mind irreversible.
(Even if a great, natural 200 pounder were to come along, he'd almost certainly make it a priority to get to about 210-215. Sort of like Evander did.)

I think if there's one trend I don't like, it's that a lot of heavyweights today place an emphasis on being heavy. Guys like Tua, Peter and Arreola were/are all heavy, needlessly so if you ask me.
It's almost as if they look at the situation and go 'The Klits are around 240-245, so I need to be around 240 as well.'
Thing is, the Klits also have the required skill and overall build to complement that weight...
There is too much emphasis on weight, and not always quality weight either.

I'd much sooner have a heavyweight of around 220 but with quick hands who can fight hard for several rounds, rather than a big musclebound plodder of 245 with a big punch, but who is gassed after 3 rounds.

I don't think it's wise trying to fight size by trying to be big as well. Speed, mobility, conditioning...traditional hallmarks...give me that, but with sufficient size.

 

You use holyfield as an example of a smaller guy, but he still had 30lbs on marciano or dempsey.

 

Agreed. Though I'm sure people at one time thought that it was impossible to fight well at anything higher than 200lbs, then 220lbs and so on. It's impossible to say what the future will bring, and I wouldn't be shocked if in twenty/thirty years time we'll be seeing some athletic seven footer dominating the division in his own particular way.

Again agreed. You only need to go back to the 90s to see that the average heavyweight fought around the 220 mark. Even stocky fighters like Mercer rarely got above 230. Now it's common to see average sized heavyweights come into the ring at 240 or 250lbs. It's silly, and there's really no significant advantages I can see except perhaps increased punch resistance, which is not much of an advantage if you can do little else.

I don't think we've reached the stage yet where a good 220lber can't still win fights in this modern era.

 

Men like dempsey and marciano weighed around 185, this would be close to the ring weight of a lhw. So why arent chad dawson, hopkins etc heavyweight champions now? There would be more money than at lhw, so what is stopping them?

If size wasnt an advantage in boxing we wouldnt have different weight divisions. Obviously it isnt everything, dimitrenko for example lost to chambers.

When considering how well marciano and dempsey compare to the modern heavyweights, remember that you are watching them against much smaller men than lewis or wlad face.

How well would wlad have done as a 240lb 6'6 boxer fighting lhw and cruiserweights? better or worse than the heavyweights.

 

I admit I don't have an answer to this issue. It appears to be apples and oranges to me because of the effect of drugs.

"I'd say that historically Lewis has proven very hard to stop."

No. Not by the historical standards I quoted. Lewis was stopped twice by one punch. And Wlad has been stopped three times. That is above the norm of old-time great fighters who dominated their eras.