Was there ever a bodybuilder type who could fight?

After the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, wood burning for heat became trendy for rural homes, so a great deal of wood chopping, sawing and log splitting took place. There's nothing like it, especially for making yourself much stronger than you look in the upper body.

Pushing a saw across a limb or log, then pulling it back while cutting through, or yanking an ax blade out after chopping it into a thick trunk, then taking aim while shooting to bury it further into the previous cut...also the angles, with standing trees and logs lying across the ground, as well as splitting upright logs from above, means working on the firewood from a variety of angles.

It could give southpaws a peculiar advantage to do that with their left hands and arms. Very astute and dedicated enthusiasts would alternate woodcutting from the left side to the right on a day-to-day basis.

Manual wood cutting is whole body exercise, not muscle isolation as bodybuilding involves, so it facilitates the development of punching power far more effectively.

Earnie Shavers tried weight training as well as cutting wood, and could appreciate the difference. Keep in mind that he grew up on an Ohio farm lifting bales of hay, a daily whole body leverage exercise during his years of growth and physical development which were key to his innate mastery of leverage. The Baer brothers and Joe Frazier were also big farm boys growing up. Then their size got them jobs hoisting slabs of meat in slaughterhouses. (Smaller boys tend not to be selected for that sort of heavy physical work growing up.)

Tunney was born and grew up in Manhattan, but as a mature veteran of WW I in 1921, he famously worked as a lumberjack for J. R. Booth in Ontario, never letting on that he was an AEF boxing champion, and developed enough power to become a very capable puncher with durable hands.

For muscle building purposes, I don't think wood chopping would be particularly helpful, nor did I find weight training to be of any help when it came to cutting wood. Entirely different forms of strength development.

 

Here's your most accurate answer (I follow bodybuilding).

Holyfield is your closest to a bodybuilding boxer. He was trained by Lee Haney. If you know anything about bb'ing you'll know who he is. And if you take a look at Evander you'll see he was jacked and bigger than a lot of guys that claim to be bodybuilders at your local gym

 

Louis Monaco.

He was the guy Peter McNeeley lost to right after Tyson. Monaco would go on to KO Buster Douglas after the bell and get KO'd by Butterbean.

*Edit: A quick stop at Boxrec and in his second pro fight Monaco got squashed by The Bean. Then he fought McNeeley in late '96 and then Buster after that.

He compiled a 16-39-5 record with 8 KO's. But the dude was ripped.

 

He used to lift his parents over his head and brothers,sisters and dogs,cars, rocks and things but never weights....I dont believe it

 

Jumbo Cummings drew with shot Frazier

 

Juan "Iron twin" Urango had the bodybuidler body. Heavy shoulders with fully developed pecs in the ring and he weighed 140.

 

He had a cruiserweight torso with featherweight legs.

 

Cornelius Bundrage was top tall with bird legs. His career didn't turn out too bad.

 

yep the dude was all muscle but he lost to everybody :bbb

 

Yes he did and he was extremely stiff in there. The dq loss to Douglas showed he had some power if only Cus D'Amato had discovered him earlier...