Ideally, a fighter wants to get to the lowest weight he can comfortably make without sacrificing his health, strength and stamina. The purpose behind this is so the fighter can be as strong as possible in relation to the other fighters in his weight class. I'm so f'n tired of hearing all this crap about how Williams and Margarito are huge welterweights and that they shouldn't be fighting at 147. Yes, they should be fighting at 147 if that's the lowest weight they can comfortably make! Thats f'n point!... and if its so unfair, than the so called "small welterwieghts" should drop down to 140 if they can make that weight comfortably. This is my point. Why does everybody equate height with size? I don't think Margarito is any bigger than Cotto is, just think he's taller, whereas Cotto is stockier.... and there's physical advantages and disadvantages for both tall and short fighters and its up to the fighters to exploit the disadvantages of their opponent. Tall fighters usually fight better from range, while shorter fighters are generally better at inside fighting. I mean, same thing with Pavlik....he's incredibly tall for a middleweight but he's lanky and rail thin. Nobodies saying its unfair for Pavlik to fight at 160 cause he's taller than everybody else. Abraham is shorter and stockier than Pavlik but I don't consider him smaller. IMO, one isn't really bigger than the other, they're just proportioned differently! Anyway, thats just the way I see it. Thougts?
In the fight game leverage is worth way more than muscles. If your frame is larger you have way more leverage whick equals strenth. Not weight lifting but real strength. Just think of using a cheater pipe 2 foot long and then use one 4 foot long there is no comparison in the amount of leverage you can get.
True but short guys like Tyson and Frasier were able to generate incredible power because they were short limbed, stocky and able to throw therir bodyweight into their punches. Tall guys aren't always the bigger punchers.
This is true. Guys like Hearns, Klitchkos and many others have show it. However that power is useless if the smaller fighter does what he should be doing and that is fighting on the inside. Also shorter, stalkiers guys generally have better chins (I.E. Clottey, Chavez, Duran) whereas taller guys tend to have shaky chins. Of course this is not always the case but it's a good rule of thumb.
