In the old days, there used to be dozens of guys who weighed at the middleweight, light heavy or low cruiserweight level, who could really knock out guys with one punch and did so on a regular basis. Who was the last of these guys, and/or do they still exist. For example, Joe Choynski, was not that great a fighter, but many people say he was the hardest hitter they ever faced, despite his size. He knocked out other light heavys, or smaller heavies regularly. Why arent their currently middleweights who can do the same. Not necessarilly the Superheavyweights, but the current small heavys. Jack Dempsey was a small sub 200 heavy, who kod many, many fighters in the first rounds and was devastating. In todays times of padded records, why arent their similar sized opponents who dispatch of opponents just as regularly and impressively, even if not all were all that big. Langford was another huge puncher who started out small and grew, and actually added power (or at least kos) substantially as he went up in weight. In contrast, nowadays, as fighters go up in weight, they nearly always lose their power (in contrast to the additional weight). There are dozens of other awesome examples of smaller guys with power (or at least ability) that transferred up in the weights and maintained the power they had (even if sometimes they did lose fights). To me, todays fighters all do seem to have plenty of power, but only really the bigger fighters. What fighters do you think their are at a weight of Light heavy to say 190, who could regularly beat the best small heavys of today (or their time) in the same manner that some of the older fighters beat the corresponding fighters of their time (leaving aside the superheavys from discussion, as if they didnt exist). Actually i suppose the question is what modern fighters could dominate a cruiserweight division in the same manner as the old timers did, ie if all the "skilled Superheavys went to play football or something". And i suppose (just thought of this) if this happened, who would be the unskilled current superheavys you would nominate to fill the role of the Carnera's and Willards. I hope that question at least made a little sense.
They have not gone away. Fighters like Tommy Hearns, Eugine Hart and Gerald McClellan gave some top heavyweights serious beatings in sparring. What they didn't do is try to do the same in an actual fight. The only thing that makes Langford and Fitz unique is the fact that they dared to throw the dice against the top heavyweights in an actual fight, and won the throw. This does of course mean that their modern equivalents are not worthy to carry their spit buckets.
I severely disagree, most of the real bangers today are far below CW/LHW. Maidana, Bailey, Abraham, Kirkland, Ortiz, Lemieux, Manuel Lopez, Gamboa, Poonsawat, etc. I think Cloud is a pretty hard hitting LHW, he could KO a few cruisers in my opinion and maybe some HW's. Lebedev could definitely knock some HW's in my opinion.
Agreed - think a lot of it boils down to the fact that today the game is very tightly regulated as far as weight divisions etc - especially the heavyweight division - whereas in the days of say Fitz etc the weight divisions were only vaguely/loosely adhered to - whereas today you absolutely have to weigh within the set heavyweight limit - Fitz for example weighed within the middleweight limit when he won the heavyweight title - which would never be allowed today - when Langford fought Johnson Sam was just 156 - even smaller than Fitz - often times there may be lots fighters today of lighter weight brackets who wouldn't occur to you as being as devastating a puncher as you might think - like I remember in an interview conducted by ESB with former heavyweight Phil Jackson (i think it was him anyway) he was asked if Lennox Lewis was the best puncher he was ever in with and he was like "hell no - Dennis Andries could hit like a bleep-bleeper!!" that was one which would never have occured to me but there you go
Well, I'm sure Tommy Hearns could KO people 2-3 weight classes up when he campaigned at 147 and 154. That's really the only recent example I can think of.
Choynski,Langford and Fitz were tremendous punchers.I would pick Dempsey to beat them all,but , for one punch power, he might be behind all three. I suppose one must factor in that the super heavies of today are so much better co-ordinated and athletic than the few behemoths of yesteryear. Carnera, for all his faults was pretty nifty afoot and had reasonable handspeed for his size, but lacked power.Willard was strong as an ox ,had real ko power in his right ,and could take it ,but he was slow afoot and not well co-ordinated.Guys like the Klits are not especially great boxers ,but have mastered the art of maximising their physical advantages to the utmost level.P4P greats of yore would find it difficult to produce the closer against giants that are so acutely aware of distance, and the punching range of their adversaries, plus they would have to weather the incoming shells from the telescopic reach of the Ukrainians. I don't forsee another Fitz or Choynsky koing super heavies of today, though p4p they may well be a level above them.There comes a time when size does matter,especially when allied to reasonable ability ,and the facility to make the most of your, assets size wise.
often wondered the same thing myself...:think still its probly true that guys like hearns, mclennan, jackson would give heavies tough fights, its just not allowed today.
Footage exists of Hearns sparring a older Ali, though I have no idea how heated that became. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hamed used to spar cruisers, like Johnny Nelson, and smack the **** out of them. Hamed was probably 140 some odd pounds when he wasn't training, sparring and getting the better of 190 pound plus guys.
Herbie Hide is a good example. Certainly no great, but he was a 200 pound man very capable of knocking out 240-300 pound men... And he did. He threw every punch with very bad intentions, he always looked like a nervous wreck in there trying his hardest to land those wide, full power shots from strange angles.
