Man heavyweights have gotten big

Good insights. A lot of the bulk on the NFL linemen is just that, bulk. They are also ridiculously strong.

I do believe the heavyweights of the past 20 years are- in general- stronger than those that preceded them, bodytypes aside. Much stronger. And I know we start discussing variations of "gym-strong", "functional strong", "country-strong" ... but they are just plain stronger... and that seems to work in today's game.

 

While there's no way to know for certain, that's a sound assumption in my book. The combination of shorter fights and chemical help can help alleviate the main concerns of packing on bulk for strength- that the athlete would typically get worn out quickly with the added muscle, and that it'd be difficult to maintain that mass while conditioning for a long, grueling fight. That, and the ever-growing importance of the knockout, lets these guys sell out for those attributes because at any given point in time there'll never be more than a couple fighters who can expose and take advantage of that one-dimensional training approach while avoiding the knockout themselves.

That allows guys to get bulkier than would've been optimal before in a different environment while maintaining enough stamina to get the job done since the fights are shorter and fought at a more measured pace now. More guys pack real knockout power, so caution routinely takes precedence over workrate. The fights that are exceptions tend to permanently take something away from the fighters involved- Tua-Ike, Bowe-Holyfield, Lyakhovic-Brewster, etc. While the current fighters are stronger in my eyes, if they had to fight at a higher pace and over the course of longer fights, they'd certainly need to adjust from what they train for now, otherwise alot of them would drown once they got to the deep waters of a fight. Likewise, the old-timers would have to alter some of their focus in training for the current environment. In both cases, some guys would adjust easier than others.

 

I don't think the strength of the elite heavyweights has increased much since the 70s.

And some of the champs from 50 - 100 years ago were probably stronger than some of the contenders now, so the change is gradual.

Strength on its own never won a top-level fight.

 

Those are all accurate points. At the end of the day, I still think the differences in strength would be coming from the environment (the shorter fights reward guys who focus more on strength), and the chemical means that make it easier for any decent athlete to have elite strength.

I know it's not a popular or fun to think about, but despite the rampant chem use that people started noticing from the 90's on, the drugs themselves were surely available to fighters beginning in the late 60's. Without the negative stigma attached to their use in that era, the odds are a number of guys even from the 70's were on them.

 

I agree with that.

The anti-steroid hysteria thing really only hit sports in the late 80s.
In the 50s, 60s, 70s I daresay a lot of athletes didn't even think to question whether that pill or injection that the doctor or trainer gave them would be labelled "cheating" or seized upon by media hype in the future.
I mean, it's a matter of record that Muhammad Ali, for an example, took drugs of various doctors, painkillers, weight loss, thyroid. Maybe he had the occasional testosterone shot too, who cares if he did ? Boxing has been full of fight doctors with spikes and potions since the early golden eras of the sport. To be blunt, no one really gave a **** whether athletes were taking courses of pills that allegedly made them stronger over a period of months. I mean, it didn't really qualify as a doping issue back in the day.

The only reason people think the 90s is a turning point is because people began to view boxing training in "scientific" terms, with reference to sports science across the board. It's not that the drugs were suddenly being used/available, it's just that their use was being understood more as part of an overall scientific training programme. In the 60s and 70s, steroids or testosterone was just a couple of pills you'd wash down with your milk, steak and raw eggs, or an injection the doctor would give you once a week in the training camp. By the 90s everyone wanted to study what all these things actually meant and did exactly.
Loads of 70s and early 80s heavyweights were almost certainly juiced up.
To me, it's no big deal.
Maybe John L.Sullivan was buzzed on some bezerker whisky/cocaine cocktail, who cares ?

Drugs have definitely gotten better though.

 

Agreed on all counts. :thumbsup As for the future of the drugs...I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into gene doping (which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like) when I'm not burned out from school. From what I know of it so far, it's the next step in the evolution of performance enhancing drugs and seems straight out of a sci-fi movie.

 

This content is protected

"Gene doping ? Never heard of it, mate."

 

In sports such as baseball, hockey, tennis, soccer, football et al, the players these days are bigger, and stronger in general in comparisons to their predecessors 40 years ago. Size is certainly an advantage in most sports. The more contact the sport has, the more size matter.

You just don't see many basketball ball players 6" short for their position. But they were that size in the 1960's.

You just don't many 5'8" hockey players, most are near six feet. Yet there were plenty 4 decades ago.

You just don't see many short 5'9" world class tennis players, yet you would find many in the 1980's

In football the size difference is obvious.

Boxing is much the same. Outside of a puncher's chance which can be found below 200 pounds in rare cases, the best heavyweights since 1990 have almost always been skilled super heavies. Men over 6'2", 220 pounds, with at least a 76" reach.

Bowe, Lewis, Kltischko, and Klitschko held the title from 1990-2010 for the majority of the 20 years that have passed.

 

I would not call it gene doping, but gene therapy is out there. The human genome has been mapped, but hardly understood or explored.

The human genome contains about 23,000 protein coding genes which are given letter codes in A, T, C, G. By " changing " a sequence in a cell, you could alter someones DNA. In the the so distant future, you will see designer babies. When this happens, sports as we know it will change.

 

Ex-cruiserweight 208-215lbs Holyfeild held the title in 1990, 1991, [half of] 1992, 1993, ROBBED v Moorer in 1994, then held it again in 1996, 1997 And 1998. Holyfeild deserved teh decision vs Mikey Moorer in 1994 even with Bad heart problems And he was beating the **** out of 240lbs Bowe in 1995 before gassing all of a sudden from Hepatitus.

And yeah i know Lewis deserved to get teh Decision in his 1st fight v Old 'Vander - BUT the rematch was a close, competitive 12 fight And considering Holyfield was 37 yrs old And fighting the Greatest And BEST H2H Superheavy Of All Time, it shows something, Mendoza - teh 37 yr old Holyfield from "Lennox 2" v.likely wins VS 2003/2004 Voidtali And 2009/2010 Wlado. :deal

 

Somebody was eating those moorer jabs in that fight. must have been the ref, huh? because moorer wasn't missing and hitting air.

 

Im not the only one who scored it for Holyfield, you twat.

And he had v.bad heart problems.

 

These are good points, but you also dont see many 7 foot 300lb marathon runners either.

It is interesting to note, that the smaller fighters ie former cruiserweights and light heavyweights that are coming through, are successfully beating the superheavyweights (outside the top 2 who have not yet been really tested agaisnt such types of fighters).

It is also very interesting, imo, that the two best current fighters just happen to be the two best conditioned fighters going around at the moment, always in shape and never overweight. And those two guys just happen to win most of their fights by totally outlasting their opponents and dominating the later rounds. It wouldnt matter how tall or heavy they were, they have never met a fighter who can match them for stamina. The day that they do, will be their biggest test, imo.

Steroids obviously have an impact, but i think that the emphasis on strength and power ahead of Stamina and condition is the biggest thing which has effected the size of current champions.

 

So you deem the scoring of the fight a robbery. Moorer sure won a lot of rounds with that accuracy of his and Holyfield was having a tough time landing anything clean. A robbery was the draw decision for the Lewis #1 bout.

And an accurate southpaw with a jab was a style problem for holyfield going into that bout. there were a lot of backers thinking Moorer would win the fight by decision and the odds were hardly overwhelming in favor of Evander prior to the fight. It was no upset the magnitude of the Ruiz bout.