The boxing prejudice against heavy weight training

A lot of guys like Dundee don't/didn't know much about strength and conditioning. A guy like Louis Monaco should be evidence that weight training gives an edge in almost any physical activity. The guy was 27 when he turned pro as a boxer, had been a body builder, and though he lost a lot more than he won, he was not protected by management and managed to fight a draw with kick boxing champ Rick Roufas (6-1 boxing), beat Peter McNeely, and go 10 with Trevor Berbeck in his first 10 fights/13 months as a fighter. He probably was in the "loser" locker room for every fight in his career. He mostly traveled to the other guy's hometown and provided opposition, but he pulled some surprises.

I have never seen him fight, but with no boxing background, he probably lacked fundamentals and fought using his strength and quickness. In fights 11-14, he knocked out Kevin McBride and beat Michael Dokes. He then hit Buster Douglas after the bell, knocking him out and was disqualified. Imagine if this guy had started boxing early, had good boxing fundamentals, etc. He didn't win a lot, but with tough competition from the start, he managed to make life difficult for some good fighters.

Weight training will give a person an edge in strength and usually quickness. If that physical advantage is coupled with good boxing training, the athlete will have an edge over most of his opponents.

 

Considering that we're talking about heavyweight boxing, I thought is was apt to talk about notable Nigerian boxers (not coincidentally almost entirely heavyweights) rather than Nigerian civilians. I dont think you're the sharpest knife in the drawer.

 

Warn offs from weight training were def. an old school trainer’s advice.

I believe Henry Cooper said he was advised same by his trainer (Jim Wicks?).

It might harken back to late 19th, early 20th century when weight training was more narrowly applied to strong men and body builders and perhaps a bit more broadly to wrestlers for the direct value of strength and bulk in their sport.

Perhaps some of these better muscled guys were invited to box based on their sheer physiques and strength - and they likely failed miserably - thus causing trainers to preclude weight training as a job lot rather than something that could be selectively and considerately applied for the better in boxing.

However, going through the years there are some fighters who appear to have put some work into muscle building - perhaps by way of more accepted manual labouring like tree chopping, lifting bales of hay etc.

Still, guys like Johnson and particularly McVey who, while being ripped, appeared to have considerately added muscle volume that might’ve gone beyond simple labouring means - but then again, maybe not, because labouring can not only add some notable muscle but by nature and most importantly, it will also promote muscle stamina. .

Johnson himself like to perform feats of strength - back in Jack’s day, with all the clinching, holding and mauling, pure strength could be argued as being a bit more relevant and sought after.

Through the time he challenged Jeffries, Johnson was constantly noting the incremental increases in his own size and weight - to suggest that he was approximating to and almost on par with the size of the Boilermaker in order to promote the viability of the match up.

 

You claimed it's not surprising that Ike was that big "because he was Nigerian". The implication is that the average Nigerian man is huge.

Selecting a sample size of 4 Nigerian boxers means you probably shouldn't be calling anyone slow. Especially since the ones you brought up fight in the current era where most boxers are going to be huge in general due to weight lifting and/or peds which weakens your argument further.

 

Concluding that Joshua is on PEDs for having muscles is laughably misguided considering what other Nigerian boxers have looked like.

 

Lots of unmuscular Nigerians, lots of big ones it's the same everywhere what we should consider is that all heavyweights are genetically predisposed to size they are all outliers they are all big athletic guys on PEDs generally. I like your take honestly.

 

@cross_trainer I'm gonna do some digging into Nigerian boxing and see what I can find.

 

You should really read the posts you're replying to before questioning someone's intelligence. I never concluded that Joshua was on PEDS "for having muscles". I never once accused Joshua at all in this thread.

I began by talking about Ike Ibeabuchi and mentioned him by name twice. He's definitely an outlier being 6'2 and 250 lbs of solid muscle with the ability to throw hundreds of bombs for 12 rounds. We haven't seen anything like that from any country before or since the dawn of the modern big guy era (which makes it an even bigger red flag). Not even the other Nigerian boxers you mentioned have insane stats like those. A man that height cannot naturally weigh a solid 250 without an intense dedication to weight training, let alone also having an amazing gas tank to fight at the pace of Joe Frazier. It's ridiculous.

 

65/112 Nigerian boxers listed on boxrec are heavyweights. They skew big.

 

Pardon me. You were unnecessarily degrading Ike Ibeabuchi for having muscles and stamina.

 

A+ for the Louis Monaco reference! I saw him train. He was definitely STRONG.

 

A smattering of reasons, building off what you said:

Fighters from the no weight lifting days were fighting closer to monthly. With regular weight lifting the fighter will need days to rest their arms, their legs, etc. It makes it harder to keep momentum going on technique and cardio.

Once you set up the weight bench, there will be an instant bench press pissing contest leading to injury and distraction.

Boxing trainers are naturally conservative. If you miss a new technique that works you'll just start using it with your next prospect. If you try a new technique and it messes up the camp, you send your unprepared fighter out to take a life changing beating.

You're assuming the shape of the distribution is similar. Perhaps Nigeria produces more outliers?

The only solution here is to take a fact finding trip to Lagos. We'll go up to randomly selected men, ask them their ethnicity (Igbo, Yoruba, etc), then ask them to flex and we will pinch their biceps. We'll also take urine, blood, and hair samples to check for PEDs.

We will do this in other countries to compare, then perform sophisticated statistical analyses.

That could be the AJ effect though. People see HW boxing specifically as a chance to strike it big.

 

This idea that lifting makes you slow is absurd.

The fastest men on earth ALL lift. Can't argue with that as the last thing those guys need is useless mass.

If you take two equally skilled fighters and only one of them has an S&C program, he will win more fights out of the two overall. So many fighters train with weights that are 20-70% of their overall one rep max. So the idea that fighters only lift heavy when they lift is stupid. Besides, most Boxers (even Canelo and Ruiz) lift in a bodybuilding manner, and that's pointless for Boxing. Use REAL fight specific lifts/movements and there's literally no downside to it.

BJ Penn, an MMA legend, was notorious for not training hard and having weight & conditioning issues. He trained with some REAL coaches who had a history in the NFL, and his conditioning was flawless for 5 rounds in the cage, and he'dput a beating on those guys. Unheard of for him.

When it's sport specific, and not used for weight management, it's a tremendous tool. The notion that all you need is roadwork and floor work is hilariously outdated.