Why are modern heavyweights all fatasses?

:good Well said. If I or anybody said that MLB, NFL, NHL, or NBA players of 50 years ago were better than todays players, I'd be considered a loon. And rightly so. Yet when it comes to HWs it's the reverse that's logical :huh :nut with some here. You can make all the points you want w/the "HW no good now" crowd and they'll end up calling you a *** or some similar lame comeback. What else can they say? They have no real argument - only some serious bias issues.

Now I think it is reasonable to compare smaller men, LW, WW, MW, etc from different eras. Training, diet are better now, but the older fighters were nearly as good. Times were hard 50-100 years ago, even for many Americans. Gives you the "eye of the tiger". But that's not enough for smaller HWs of the past to overcome modern HWs like Lennox, Wlad, and others.

Oh, c_t that cutting water weight debate you had w/others was interesting. I'm not going to act like I know as much about it as you & the others. I have someone in the family (way up in age now) that was a good amateur boxer. He used to tell me about dry weight, etc. And I've read a bit about it. Still it just didn't make sense to me that Joe L would cut 20 lbs of water. Why as a HW? :? That's 10% of his total weight ! Seems more like dehydration. :blood I know they had weigh ins earlier in those days...

 

Simple answer: They cut water weight as heavyweights because they wrongly believed it would make them fight better.

Incidentally, many fighters today would be about the same weight as the ones in the 60's and 70's if they trained the same way (extra gene-related fat excluded). Which leads back to the obvious question--could a heavyweight train "old school" and do well?

 

In all honesty, 80-85% of heavyweights could lose at least 10 to 20 pounds of excess weight...

And they'd all be better for it, too.

 

box03 quit being a wind up. Yeah, I think they're comparable. I could give a rats ass about some unscientific poll you, or most anybody, would run on ESB. Next your going to tell me you're a great statistician :roll:

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Wouldn't surprise me a poll would give the edge to the 90s. And my main point, which you're forgetting, was that the 90s-2000s together were better than earlier eras. You can't even get fans to agree who the top HW was in the 90s - although the answer is obvious because it's not that close.

 

Of course, none of us are Einstein either.

 

OK, got it. So you do think they were wrong.

Interesting speculation. :think Hard to say (I've been up for 18 hrs :yep )

 

Yes. Clearly wrong.

If they had better hydration, it would help them.

I know the feeling. I'm working on a few hours' sleep myself.

I'd guess that they could, since many fighters in the lighter weight classes manage to do quite well with "old school" training. The only difficulty is that it might leave them a few pounds too light to take on the big boys.

...Except that they shouldn't cut water weight, as mentioned above.

 

Im not trying to be an ******* I just have a hard time understanding what makes the 2000s even close to the 90s as far as great fighters go, maybe you can explain to me how you came up with this theory or in your opinion conclusion. And trust me I watch almost every heavywieght fight thats on tv and half of them I have on tape, in my opinion aside from the klit brothers, Ruslan Chagaev, and Sam Peter I have seen no even good heavywieghts in the last 4 years.

 

chagaev, povetkin, ibragimov, samuel peter and oleg maskaev are all fat, it looks like waldo is the only heavyweight who cares.

 

I agree with Grabonator on this one. I'm sure when fights were 15 rounds there were fans saying, "If only they fought 20 plus rounds like back in the old days we wouldn't have these fat heavyweights."

 

Based on what you said we half way agree. It also depends on who you put in each decade set. I think LL could claim the 00s (first half) almost as much as the 90s. Most consider LL, Holy, & Tyson (yes, that version), as the top three 90s HWs. I agree - in my view LL #1. The 2000s are about 2/3rds done (3/4ths if you define as 2000-09). Who knows who'll emerge in the next few years, or what Wlad may accomplish? If you place LL only in the 90s, I'd give the nod to the 90s. That's all. If anyone says the 90s HWs were much better than the 2000s, then there's a hidden agenda which many have alluded to.

The 90s was the first decade after the fall of the Soviet East Euro block. Boxing was just beginning to become a true world sport. Now, still within the second decade after opening up East Europe, their fighters are making a bigger impact - and not just at HW. :yep

I don't know if you're a pure hater or what, as you seem to give some credit to non US HWs. I just think you, like many others, have a certain image of what a top fighter should look like that isn't jelling w/recent uh results. Thus the "HW no good now" mantra. Why not "SMW no good now" too. I mean good gawd, 2 West Euros fighting for all the marbles in a division - must be worst ever. :roll:

 

Or perhaps the training just makes them progressive larger, because they need to worry about stamina less and less. Ken Norton, for instance, would have been somewhat heavier if he didn't need to train heavily to maintain this sort of workrate:

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Many do. Did I directly say you called them gay?

Like you said: "The biggest ***** will always scream the loudest". :rofl

I don't call fans "****** ass" because I disagree w/them. Your're projecting your insecurities on to me.

Yeah, I did. And you're a blooming hypocrite. :yep

They may be slightly slower, but are more powerful and could blow out your CW/small HW idols of the past. We could have had a reasonable debate on the bob & weave style, but you chose to act like a grade school "tough guy". We disagree, no go bait & troll someone else w/your ****** ass debating "skills". :hi:

 

I'm not a math guy but to me it seems like since there is a greater number of people on the planet now than there was "back in the old days" and a greater number of professional boxers, not only because of population growth but because of the global village effect e.g. East Europeans competing as pros that the boxers at the very top would be better than their bygone counterparts. Big fish in a much larger pond.

 

Perhaps. But remember that American heavyweights did beat their Eatsern European counterparts in the Olympics in '64 and '68...clearly, the 70's heavyweights that they grew into were the best of the "global" village.

In fact, there wasn't an overwhelming dominance of Eastern Europeans in the heavyweight ranks until relatively recently. The Cubans (who are still locked up under Castro) were much more successful, for instance.