Why did heavyweight boxers suddenly get bigger

This seems the most plausible answer. Sports like wrestling have shown dramatic changes. I don't remember so many 300lb acrobats leaping off the top rope. Big guys were always around in boxing and wrestling but there were limits as to what could be achieved with them from traditional methods and rules.

 

Yeah, and that's because AJ and Klitschko are refined world class boxing specimens.
But there were definitely big strong athletic guys.

 

No. The posters who exclaimed he could beat both Dempsey and Marciano were the amateurs. Kovalev was the unproven fighter.

 

Nutrition, training protocols, supplements both permitted and not permitted all contribute. Add in a change in how the sports community looked at what body type is suitable for what sport. The Sports Gene book makes some interesting points on this subject. Have a look at the tedtalk at the bottom of the page, while not directly related to boxing the points made seem relevant to me.

http://thesportsgene.com/

 

I'd say you've hit the nail on the head with that:

"All this steroid-injected meat and genetically altered food has a lot to do with it I'm sure."

 

At 32 I'm over 6ft and weigh around 17 stone, the number of kids I see that tower over me is ridiculous, some of them are far from beanpoles as well.

 

The foods are laced with chemicals which wouldn't have been there 70 to 100 years ago.

 

It's not evolution, that's a common misunderstanding. It's just talent pool. Human population has gotten bigger and bigger. That means there are more and more big and athletic people. When you look at the average hw size it tracks in a fairly common sense manner. It was getting bigger up until wwii, then it cratered due to population loss etc. Then it started consistently tracking upward again. All due to increasing population and increasing participation of different countries etc.

 

In other words, the average size of a human is about the same it was 50 years ago. Maybe a half inch and ten pounds bigger from nutrition etc. The big difference is that there are MANY more 6'6 men nowadays, from raw numbers, not from percentages. And many more of them are exposed to boxing than before. Therefore, a MUCH greater chance of having people of that size with the necessary athletic attributes to best take advantage of those assets.

It's why schools are placed in divisions. A school of 200 usually can't hope to compete with a school of 1000. They are probably about the same average height etc for the entire school, but there are many more opportunities for the more populated school to have exceptional athletes. Therefore, the school of 1000 will probably have a much larger football team than the smaller school, because there are alot more big people who can therefore compete for a limited number of spots, putting them a a big advantage. Same with different eras of boxing.

 

I'm watching the Bears right now.
They have a new half back that's 5'6 178lb.

He's running into SHWs every play.

 

The past 24 yrs I've worked in the Corrections Field. While the kids today are bigger and much more prone to violence, they are physically much easier to handle, than the men I got into it with the 1st time I stepped in the building in 93. And I know I was far more capable in the 90's then I am today. Bigger doesn't mean better.