The majority of heavyweights today are overweight

Look at david haye for example. He was pretty regimented throughout his cruiserweight career. Got to heavyweight and immediately started trying to put weight on. Holyfield the same.

They probably are a little less disciplined but most do it to use it as an asset. Not everyone can be usyk. The reality is even fast heavyweights get caught. When their lighter getting caught affects them more. Joshua and dubois fell apart faster than most of them.

Their not doing it because their ill disciplined their doing it because lighter leaves you vulnerable to being depleted quicker when you start getting hit. Most heavys light or heavy dont have the feet/energy to stay away from getting hit all night at that level.

Their preparing their bodies to take the hits better mostly.

 

There are different types of weight. I'm not an expert, but I've noticed these two types throughout life.

Type 1 is from high intensity, muscle shredding movements like weights, explosive workouts, etc. This type of muscle is easy to gain, easy to lose, and doesn't hold up well with longer efforts.

Type 2 is from many, many more repetitions, lower amount of work done, etc. This is muscle built up from things like swimming, rowing, running. This muscle is very hard to gain, but you will not lose it quickly. This muscle is exactly what you want for something like boxing, but it isn't easy to get. Think of the legs of a cyclist - they don't need to lift a single weight and over years of dedicated training they can get massive legs.

I think most HW's are at a certain weight, and then further along they tack on far too much Type 1 muscle. Someone like Usyk is almost all Type 2 - he's going to have a little less pop, but pop can be artificially created with technique, timing, ample Type 2 muscle, and a tired opponent. As with many things in life, the better version of something is significantly harder to get, so the majority of people go for the lesser version.

 

Nah, they should all be even bigger. Mass moves mass. We don't want to watch a bunch of Fancy Dans waltz about. We want to see mass moving mass. The bigger the better.

 

But...but what about our resident crackpot's evolution theory?

 

If true, it suggests that top fighters with millions on the line, backed by their teams and sports science experts, are totally wrong about a critical performance factor. That laziness and gluttony generally takes precedence over victory, status and financial self-interest. Or that they overestimate the gains in terms of punching power, durability and mass-based strength and underestimate the costs in speed, agility and stamina, despite having all sorts of technological performance metrics available to them.

I think this is overstated.

213 lbs Hunter beat 256 lbs Bakole, this doesn't mean that Bakole was too heavy. It could mean that Hunter was significantly better than Bakole, or that Bakole didn't perform to the best of his ability for whatever reason, or that it was a bad stylistic matchup for a plodding Bakole.

Wilder came in heavy for Fury 2 and Fury 3 and got KO'd but Fury also came in heavier and did better in terms of the result. Fury was legitimately out of shape in fight 3. Fury claims that Wlad messed with the scales and he was actually 256 lbs, which is more in line with his weights before and after. If true, he was likely only a stone heavier at his hest heavy weight vs Wilder 2. A backfoot Fury would benefit from being lighter, a front foot mauler Fury would likely benefit from the extra stone to hurt, absorb and drain. Against Usyk, Fury may well have had weights in his pockets for the rematch (mind games), he's done this before by his own admission (McDermott 2). For Usyk 1 he was 262 lbs, likely within half a stone of the Wlad fight weight, which may be as light as he can optimally be 8.5 years and all of the body damage later.

Would Ruiz have beaten Joshua if he'd been a more natural weight? He wouldn't be shredded even at 205 lbs and I wouldn't favour him. Would James Toney have been more effective at HW at a more natural 201 lbs? He clearly didn't think so.

Parker lost to Joshua, Whyte and Joyce at lighter weights. His issue against Wardley wasn't being too heavy, it was not being good enough.

Miller being 300+ lbs didn't stop him having crazy volume, especially in the old days.

Usyk said prior to moving up to HW that he'd fight at "100 KG", which he does. He believes this weight is optimal and I believe him, rather than any forum poster who has no knowledge of his camp.

There are certainly examples of fighters being overweight and this hindering their performance (Bakole recently, Zhang vs Parker in particular, Dave Allen of course, though he's not a top heavyweight) but I think this is more often an excuse for poor performance rather than a genuine reason. There's also difference between getting your tactics wrong in regard to weight due to preparing for a different kind of fight and being in poor condition due to gluttony. Fans of HW boxing from generations ago also like the overweight narrative because their favourite boxers were naturally much smaller men on average than HW's today, it's consoling to say that "modern boxers aren't really much bigger, they're just overweight/fat".

 

Holyfield never showed up without visible abs, come on ow. He was only interested in muscle, not putting on love handles and somehow thinking it would help him hit harder.

 

Muscle tires quicker than fat. Otherwise they,d mostly come in a lot more muscled. That fact pretty much means if you want size fat reserves will help better.

Its not a professionaly run sport that gets to the heavyweight division and no one has any professional standards. Its mostly a tactical decision.

Joshua eats around 5,500 calories when in training. So you can hazard a guess the ones that come in heavier must be hitting more calories than that. At that point its not gluttony but tactical mostly.

Holyfield was a known ped user. His tank was good enough even with the muscle.

Heavier you take a better shot. You do hit heavier. It also gives you some protection against depletion both stamina and from the heavy shots. Its a bigger risk coming in lighter....if you start getting caught you deplete quicker against the heavier guy. You can be as fit as you want if a much bigger guy starts landing that stamina starts depleting.

Some of the reasons why they do it.

Usyk went a bit heavier himself for some of them reasons. So did haye. So did holyfield. Otherwise why wouldnt they have just stayed at their cruiserweight weight.

Pretty much benefits v cost. The benefit of coming in heavier outweighs the cost of coming in heavier a lot of the time.

 

Overall I agree with the OP

I think Parker has added Power alongside his weight gain

But a far better balance for him is to weigh at least 10 lbs lighter than he did for this fight

 

how did coming in at 262 work out for Joe Parker last weekend?

 

Its not exactly a compelling argument. We cant put everyones losses just down to weight.

He fought chisora at 241. Won a split decision and got put over in the first round. Had an immediate rematch at 251 lbs where he won a unanimous decision. He put chisora down twice and gave him a count in the 4th round. Probably a much better argument than he lost a fight against someone they,ve not fought before so it must be down just to weight.

Parkers stamina went in the 2nd round against wardley not because he just got tired or he was overweight it was because wardley hurt him in the second round.

Your system starts to shut down on you which we,ve seen from say joshua a few times now. Someone that isnt overweight.

Joe was fit enough. Its just thats theres no real insurance policy against getting hurt. Again its cost v reward. Can joe be light enough that he dances round the younger fitter less miles on the clock opponent all night at 33. Or do we put more weight on him slowing him up but able to take the punches a bit better and adding more weight to his own punches etc. Thats what it comes down to and most times at 33 anyway they take the 2nd option.

Its not ill-discipline most of the time its a choice.

 

They're not fat they're big boned.

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