You dont know what your talking about. A thick boneset simply means more weight.As the body matures so does your musculature. With increased maturity comes more weight. This is simple physics coupled with age. Considering the fact that Rahman is a legtimate heavyweight who could easily walk around at close to 300lbs the only thing laughable here is your argument.
BMI isnt an indication of anything. My BMI indicates that im obese. But my BF is 13%. BMI is not a calculation that is able to take into account the amount of muscle on someones frame. Its only an average indicator of weight vs height taken as braod examples.
I think it's a fair statement that fighters generally suffer when trying to maintain their weight strictly as they age. As we age we do tend to store more intra muscular fat, so if a fighter wanted to maintain the same amount of muscle his weight would increase anyway. Of course sub cutaneous fat (that is the visible fat under the skin) generally gets harder to keep off as we age due to declining HGH and testosterone levels. I have dealt with many bodybuilders, boxers and general athletes who maintain very strict training protocols for years, yet I always notice that maintaining the same aesthetical body is so rare past a certain age. The ones that do, like conditiner101 stated are likely using PED's. You used Bernard Hopkins as an example, which I liked. Hopkins physique suffered a lot in his last few years at 160lb, with his overall levels of muscle obviously going down. He went from a well muscled fighter in his early 30's to a skinny looking straggeler at his last days at 160lb. Remember how good he looked at 175lb against Tarver? Finally he hadn't starved himself and had regained some of his lost muscle - and even put a bit more on which his sturdy frame relished. There was a great post a while ago about body types and performance in the ring which summed things up beautifuly. If a fighter does the correct amount of cardio and resistance training before a fight his conditioning wil be set - meeting these requirements is so much more important than hitting a pre conceived "correct" weight on the scales.
Bingo:thumbsup But many here post what they post though ignorance and a complete lack of knowledge on any type of conditioning. Most have never picked up a weight in there life let alone work out. Couch potatoes always have an opinion.