Which Heavyweights fall from Rocky's right?

I think Carnera had an extra 20 fights between Gains and Sharkey and was a better fighter for it. Good contenders like Schaff, Poreda, Levinsky and Lasky he got the better of during that period improving Primo immensely.

Obviously Lennox Lewis was a better boxer but lewis learnt to be a better boxer when he was a lighter, more supple athlete and applied what he could already do twenty odd pounds lighter when he was a good 20 pounds heavier. Two Olympic tournaments and one reighn as a pro world champion before Stewart worked with Lewis was a good base line to produce a bigger version of an already giant boxer. I think it would have been a whole lot harder for Lewis to master all that technique had he started out at the size he was at the end of his career.

Primo was a clumsy boxer but he was fighting men with small 6oz gloves. There was less room for error with those gloves. Shielding behind bigger gloves its harder to penetrate with the modern sized gloves. Lewis was bound to look harder to hit even if his skill set was at Primos level. I don't think Lewis could match Carneras work rate in long fights.

 

Since my position is that he had a lot of flaws you say at the time of the Gains fight, but had improved a lot by the 2nd Sharkey fight, you are commenting on the wrong film here.

 

Most of the stoppages in boxing are tko's and not rendering a fighter
unconscious....When Dempsey fought Jess Willard, big Jess was never
once floored in his career, and whatever faults he had, the lack of an iron chin was NOT one of them...With any other referee other than Ollie Pecord
Dempsey who floored Willard SEVEN times would have won by a tko in the
first round after the first 2 or 3 knockdowns. An amazing feat in Dempsey's cap dropping the prior never floored Jess Willard in the first rd with a tremendous left hook that Dempsey had to punch UP to reach the 6ft6"
Willard's jaw...Try it sir ! Fred Fulton was a BIG man who was an excellent
boxer/puncher, who once kod Sam Langford amongst others. And before
Dempsey annihilated Jess Willard, Dempsey obliterated the 6 ft4" Fred
Fulton with a short two punch left hook and right cross that pulverized Fulton and send big Fred to LaLa land....Dempsey hit Bill Brennan so hard
in 1920 that the force of the devastating punch broke Brennan's ankle as he landed on the canvas. Dempsey also flattened a rough and tough big
Carl Morris in the very first round. Dempsey was the first fighter to ko the wily Battling Levinsky who had over 150 bouts or so.
Big fighters were catnip to the savage speed and power of the young
Dempsey who had about 25 first round knockouts in his career. He and the great 198 pound Joe Louis loved fighting the big slower dreadnaughts
because what nature gives in bulk and strength, it takes away in speed
and flexibility.....Sam Langford loved to fight bigger men yessir, as well as Bob Fitzsimmons and the aptly named Jack[the giant killer] Dillon when he
flattened much larger men than he... So a Dempsey, a Joe Louis, A Bob Fitz, a Sam Langford had the right stuff to ko anyone that they hit solidly
by getting there " fustess with the mostess" ,a phrase used by Gen.
Nathan Bedford Forrest CSA...

 

Most fights don't involve a supposed puncher in tiny gloves standing over his opponent, taking free shots at him as he tries to get up. I said that I think that Willard's size helped him absorb the beating and remain conscious. Which one of Dempey's runt-sized opponents do you see taking that beating and remaining conscious through it?

Fulton was a tall string bean and had been stopped before. Bill Brennan was a cruiserweight, not a big man. Carl Morris had numerous losses to light heavyweights before meeting Dempsey. Levinsky was a light heavyweight runt. Dempsey's whole career was smoke and mirrors.

 

Featherfist. What's that again? Explain it, and what great fighters do you consider as such?

 

There is no such thing as a featherfist.

If the level of one man's defensive anticipation matches the speed of punch as the hardest hitter of all time he is not going down. Why? Because it is the punch you don't see that knocks you out. Even when contact is made the abilty to ride the blow and prepare yourself for impact at the last moment can be the difference between the exact same punch knocking you spark out or merely getting your attention.

So much has to do with positioning, distance, travel of the punch, follow through and establishing the perfect impact with the right part of the glove. It was far, far less to do with strength itself. A great fighter can walk onto a jab and go down if he is unlucky enough to put his chin in the way at the wrong angle, moving in the wrong direction at just the right moment during the travel of the punch where it gathers its maximum torque at just the wrong moment.

I don't care if it is George Foreman, Mike Tyson, David Tua or Crazy Ike Ibeabuchi and all his muscles.... if they spend all night only tagging you with the tail end of their punch and you are good enough to react to each and every movement they make anticipating and predicting everything they do then they could hit you a hundred times and not hurt you.

There is no such thing as a Feather fist!

I guarantee the punches you think you "could take" from ANY profesional heavyweight boxer that you decide are "feather like" because they did not knock someone over would put you in a very sorry situation if you did not have the right level of instictive anticipation or experience.

 

"older ones can be shown that their KO performance drops off as the weight of their opponents increases"

Prove this with the big punchers of the first 60 years of the century--Dempsey, Baer, Louis, Marciano. I think they all had higher KO percentages against their larger opponents and each KO'd the biggest men they fought.

"against the current standard"

These men fought under the standards of their own day. A KO is a KO, whether in 1920 or 1955 or today. I am only interested in factual evidence of what actually happened in the real world, not fantasies.

There are three separate issues here

1--The skill of modern big men--yes it is much greater

2--big men punching harder--seems logical, and the evidence is strong but not overwhelming.

3--big men take punches better--it might seem logical to some, but does a big body translate to being better able to take punches to the head? The historical evidence does not seem to back it up.

 

It is only the norm when it suits your agenda though! Can you give me the reason why a fat old punch drunk James Toney can take a better shot than the giant Wladamir Klitschko?? The guy is naturally 3-4 weight divisions bigger!

 

The older fighters KO performance dropped off because of there age. The fighters didn't have the same hand speed, there legs were not as strong, there timing was not as good...They could see the opening, but were late in delivering the punch. etc...etc. This isn't rocket science here.

History tells us that these big heavyweights haven't been dominating. In fact these big fighters were always at an decided disadvantage compared to there more skilled, faster, and more active opponents. In the last 20-30 years fighters have just gotten heavier.

The current contenders are on average 230-260 lbs. In the 70's they were 200-220. We have 12-15 of Heavyweights today, in the top 15 WBC rankings weighing in at 235-265. Adamek is the smallest at 218 lbs. We have 3-4 fighters that are 6'5 or taller. The average height though is 6'2"-6'3".


So for all the talk of bigger, superior fighters, the average heavyweight contender is just slightly taller on average from the 70's contender, but a whole lot fatter. We have 3-4 fighters who are over 6'5", and none of them look to be HOFers at this time. I will concede that the bigger/taller fighters (Lewis, Klitschko, Bowe), were better then the old timers. The bigger/taller fighters currently ranked (Wilder, Fury, Helenius, Browne) do not look like anything special, at this time. Those thin/long necks leave them vulnerable in being able to take a punch.

So today we have a group of contenders, that are on average slightly taller, and much fatter, then in the past. Because of the extra weight they don't move as well, or fight at the same pace, as in the past. They also appear less skilled then there counterparts from the past. They stand in front of one another clutching, wrestling and smacking each other in the head.

Unless we see a group of talented fighters coming on the scene who stands 6'2"-6'3" and weighs in at 215-220 lbs. I don't think we will see a return to the 'pocket Heavyweights' as Dundee called them. Could those 'pocket heavyweights' as dundee called them compete with the over sized fighters today and KO them...you bet.

We won't be seeing a return to 185-200 lb Heavyweight champions though. But I could see a heavy handed fighter in that 185-200 lb. range KO the over sized fighter of today. Like others have explained better then I. Alot of factors come into delivering a KO punch, and being able to take a punch.

 

The fact is most of today's heavyweights barring a few are so heavy because they are fat embarrassing whales with no skill at all. Just look at the Cuban challenger Odlanier Solis, he looked like he'd spent his training camp for the biggest fight of his life at ****ing Burger King!

 

Nobody survives that punch if it lands on the chin like it did against Walcott.

The thing about Marciano is that he almost always landed a perfect punch to get the stoppage. When he didn't, like in his first fights with Charles and LaStarza, he won the fight on his superb stamina and workrate.

I would never bet money against Marciano.