Smallest fighter you’d favour over Max Baer?

Non-roid era.
Harold Johnson, Michael Spinks, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles, I’d favour all of these to beat Baer.

 

The smallest… this isn’t a “guarantee” as such a thing can never exist in boxing especially fantasy bouts lol but I would say James Toney is very likely to win even at *168lbs* I’d like to say Mickey Walker but I remember Schemling looked like a different species beside the Bulldog and Baer was BIG if a little lithe, I’d remove Greb from my guess for a similar reason, he couldn’t hit hard enough I think to even make the “Circus Dancing” Baer hesitate or blink but it’s “possible”- at 160lbs Charles would have very little trouble with Mr Baer but all these guys are really 180-190lbers bar Greb/Walker and I doubt they’ve (HG and MW) got much of a chance here. I think if I had to gamble on a guy who weighed about 150lbs-160lbs for “points” here it’d be Charley Burley - he had a chin, top shelf cautious boxing, very, very hard under the radar power he would stick to the plan and I don’t think Baer would be able to catch him purely boxing, he won’t be able to bait and switch/lead on him nor “take a shot” and grab him, if he got reckless Burley could really punish him enough to stand him up and rethink his abandon, it’d be akin to what you’d see in the bull fighting stadiums when the Matador is unpleased with the head count or is feeling overworked, it’d be lots of safe “gimme” shots all the damage and entertainment would have to come from Baer’s side of the equation there would be no “killing blow” unless one of them makes a terrible mistake or Baer succumbs to fatigue (which I don’t think he ever did)… otherwise if Baer doesn’t feel like getting stung he could take very little damage in the bout with Burley doing as he does and Baer defending himself in a mute bout UD for Mr Burley is 50-50 to Baer just overpowering him at some stage and landing the cannon of a right hand he trained his whole career to land lol.

 

Ezzard Charles absolutely.

 

I'll take Greb. If he could hang with and beat down Dempsey, even if it was a few rounds in 'sparring' then in my opinion he could absolutely befuddle the much less skilled and slower Baer.

 

Had a long written answer but I changed it to John Henry Lewis. He was 5 ft 11. Tunney is 6 ft 0 and I'd reliably favor him.

Plenty of guys in the 5 ft 10-5 ft 11 with a live chance he lost to Loughran and Uzcudin after all. But that doesn't mean they should be favored if I favored Loughran it'd be a 51-49 type of thing. Tons of guys that size could beat Max a third of the time but almost none could do it 6/10 times.

Langford has little chance of beating Max going off the Fulton and Wills fights. I think durable point fighters have the best chance here. Power helps but HW power from guys under 6 ft almost always comes from sacrificing mobility and putting on too much weight. Fitz is the exception but Fitz wouldn't be favored regardless because he just wasn't good enough IMO.

I'll favor Toney if hes allowed to use whatever drugs he wants.

 

Tunney, Gibbons, Miske and Loughran were a minimum of 2 inches shorter than Max with 5 inches less reach and much less power. And Greb was a hair above .500 against them 8-7-2.

Greb did beat Brennan 3 times whose got one of the highest HW KO rates ever but it seems this is due to a boxing rec technical error as they aren't counting NWS's towards it.

 

Bernard Hopkins

 

Tony Bellew

 

Roy Jones Jr

 

Billy Conn.

 

Dwight Qawi would give Baer hell.

 

Bernard Hopkins

Ezzard Charles

Archie Moore

Gene Tunney

Harry Greb

Dwight Muhammad Qawi is probably the smallest fighter in height that could beat Baer.

 

Hagler would be among my choices.