Jimmy Ellis's weight jump - the first concrete sign of steroid use in boxing?

Jimmy Ellis probably just let his weight go up, a lot of fighters are much bigger people than their fighting weight. We closed our gym once for a few months, one of our 130 pounders came back when we reopened at about 170 and he wasn't someone that looked overweight. He just kept his weight around 140 when the gym was open so that he could be ready to fight at short notice. At 170, the weight came off fast and he was back around 140 in a short time.

We have two guys who fought around 119-25 back in the 70s-80s who stop by occasionally. Both are well over 200 now and though they don't look like Deontay Wilder or Mike Weaver, they aren't someone you'd notice on the street as particularly fat. I wouldn't be surprised if Ellis weighed 190 between fights as a middleweight. Plus he never was one of those guys with inflated delts and traps or an extremely lean body that are associated with PEDs. There were plenty of Ellis' contemporaries that I suspect were using PEDs but Ellis is one that I don't suspect, though nothing involving PEDs would surprise me.

As Bokaj mentioned, steroids were not illegal until around 1990, fighters had plenty of access to them along with other athletes and they were not illegal. I've always suspected that the 6-3, 210-25 pound heavyweights of the 60s-70s used them. No proof, but fighters of that size suddenly became athletic and fighters have gotten bigger since while still maintaining athleticism. I don't attribute that to evolution or just weight training.

 

As you have stated there is no proof that the new breed of 70s heavyweights ( the 6'3'' 210-25 guys ) used steroids and yet you say you have your suspicions.
I guess we're talking about guys like Muhammad Ali,George Foreman,Joe Bugner,and Ron Lyle.
Now I have to admit that I've never set foot in a boxing-gym so I'll concede that you know far more about training and conditioning of boxers than me.
However it does seem remarkable that given the intense,forensic coverage of heavyweight
boxing during the 1970s there was never the slightest hint,rumour or
story that heavyweight-boxers were using steroids.
Could you give the specific circumstances which led you to believe heavyweight-boxers were using steroids and
specify the steroids being used and how they would benefit the fighters using them.
As I said you have far more exposure to boxers training and conditioning than I have so I'm genuinely interested as to why you have these suspicions.

 

Ellis looked emaciated at 160 so its not hard to imagine him not cutting weight and being a natural 180 then bulking up to a slightly fleshy looking 190.

 

Look I'm sure he looked good walking around the street but he was by no means tight and ripped .. you can see his upper body jiggling here against Quarry

This content is protected

 

Fair enough mate yes Dianabol was being used in the 1960s.However as you yourself stated it is highly
unlikely that it would have been widely used by boxers.
Dianabol is a steroid used for building muscle-mass,and the mantra for 1970s heavyweights was to come
into fights as light as possible.Poor old George Foreman was actually dehydrated by his trainer, Dick Sadler !
Also trainers abhored weight-training,fearing their fighters would become too bulky and musclebound.The
average trainer of the 1970s would be very upset if he suspected his heavyweight/heavyweights were using
an agent such as Dianabol.
You're right about Pacheco.He could be a bit of a jerk but he genuinely cared about Muhammad Ali.He would
have kept Ali well clear of steroids and their harmful consequences.

 

Only part I disagree with is suspecting '60's & '70's guys.
No reason either to think athleticism is necessarily correlated with using the PED's-more muscle does not mean better coordination or speed-& guys @ 6'3" with big frames are not at all unusually bulky at a lean 210-215.

Max Baer may have looked clumsy, but while fighters gradually increased in average size over time, unlike Primo Carnero or even Buddy Baer or Max Simon he did not stand out dramatically.
More folks including American blacks came into some pro sports/reached a critical mass by the 1960's, so you had people like Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey, Reggie Jackson...All naturally big guys but not either trying to max out muscle or improbably large.

Yes just "evolution" in the broader, cultural sense (actual evolution takes a loooong amount of time) & things like better nutrition & weight training absolutely can account for more folks the size of say in the range of Foreman-Ali.
Although the latter was a natural outlier in terms of speed & reflexes.

And there were always some muscular men, from McVey-Firpo.

 

I think the explanation is sure and simple. He was a stablemate of Ali. He had serious boxing aspirations, but was not sure what direction to take while Ali was champion, so he kept his weight down to make a lesser weight division. I don't think he could have stayed at middleweight, so he probably would have gone after a shot at the light-heavyweight title. When Ali was stripped of the title, he had no reason to want to control his weight. He was free to go after the big kahuna and pursue the heavyweight title since he had the frame to gain the weight naturally. Angelo would have seen this right away and come on board with or even suggested and encouraged the idea. Why look for look for a nefarious motive when the real reason is staring you in the face?

Now, because of this thread, we will have to spend the rest of our lives on this forum defending Ellis against the charge that he used steroids when there is absolutely no evidence to that effect

 

Well put Sir.

 

6'1" Jimmy looked pretty much just right at 194 1/2 lb vs Leotis Martin in 1967. Beyond that weight, the tone could appear a bit loose with a bit of flab.

To examine and track the weight/size gains of a fighter well removed the possibility/access to PEDs, look no further than Jack Johnson.

Like early Jimmy, even at age 23 yo, Johnson could look downright emaciated. His weight for the Choynski is very reliably estimated to have been barely over 170 lbs. When he beat Burns, Johnson was still only about 194 1/2 lbs. However, by the time he fought the likes of Ketchel and Johnson, Jack was at least a rock solid 205-208, with no excess fat and with a notable degree of muscle added to his frame.

 

I think you're splitting hairs .. he did not have the body of a Holyfield on PEDs .. more like Spinks that moved up to fifth Tyson but several inches shorter ..