Why were many old time boxers so scrawny looking

A lot of times I've noticed they posed in stances that made them look scrawny and also the picture quality seems to make them look scrawnier than what they were.

 

Billy Conn ?
He was quite a slim fighter, he's got no significant mass but he looks strong and fit enough for a skinny dude. I wouldn't say 'scrawny, hasn't been to gym'.
He looks fit. Just a slim athlete.

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Not much different to the modern guys

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I am tempted to suggest a lack of Junk Food diets (and the consumption of the inherent Bovine growth Agents) and lack of access to benefits, often ment you worked or Starved, Times were tough and so were the people, - Now many poor people are Obese - i suspect cheap Junk food contents can adversely effect the body chemistry, Glands, metabolism, as a race we are getting bigger...but i suspect not healthier .

 

They just look like fighters to me :conf

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Yeah as one guy said fighter's back then had a tendancy to pose in really weird stances.

But more importantly I think this illustrates the old axiom that boxing isn't a body building contest. Joe Calzaghe was never ripped or anything but I can't remember him looking winded during a fight. Juan Manuel Marquez never looked cut up, until recently, and his stamina has always been jawdropping. Same for Barrera. Same for Carlos Palomino and Winky Wright, all guys who could throw as many punches for as long as it took without running out of gas.

 

Carmen Basilio is a good example of what I mentioned earlier about picture quality.

Looks thin and almost scrawny here:

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Then take a look at him in good picture quality:

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As the above pictures, and my avatar show, Carmen was far from the scrawny looking guy the first picture makes him out to be.

 

Most of the fighters then were just flat-out tough guys, 'n prided themselves on it. They'd as soon fight in the street as the ring...and did.

There was a John L. Sullivan I-can-drink-you-under-the-table sensibility. Most all the fighters (but for Tunney) 'n trainers were heavy drinkers 'n smokers. They all smoked Camels and stogies working out in the gym.

It wasn't uncommon to see world-class fighters smoking between rounds of sparring.

The smoke was so thick, you couldn't see from one side of the gym to the other.

They had no concept of condition. They relished being tough mugs. Health considerations was sissy stuff. They just wanted to knock someone's block off; the sooner the better, so they could get back to pub crawling 'n chasing tail.

Mickey Walker, Fritzie Zivic 'n Lew Jenkins ( who looked like a concentration camp survivor), prime examples.

Last guy I can remember with that sensibility was a scarecrow thin Roberto Duran when he first fought on the undercard at the new Madison Square Garden. Thought his corner would need raw meat 'n a whip 'n chain to control him.

 

If the point you were trying to make with Harold Johnson was how hard he must have trained to be shredded like that. It wasn't the case, o. Sure he trained, but he was genetically blessed with that physique, like Tony Mundine 'n Mundine, Jr.

 

You said "scrawny" in your subject head, h. Did you mean that or "soft 'n flabby"?

 

If I grew up in the Depression and rationing era's, I might have been a bit smaller.

 

If you took the fighters from that era and time machined them to today, you'd probably see that they're not scrawny at all. We're used to seeing athletes in modern film and pictures. High definition color and up close camera angles using the very best in modern photography. Overall I would agree that the fighters today are bigger due to nutrition, supplements and other factors such as length of bouts, time off in between fights etc..A twelve round fighter may not have to train down as intensely as a fifteen or twenty round fighter would. Strength, body mass and power would then take a back seat to conditioniong and endurance. The old timers didn't have a McDonalds or Burger King or KFC on every corner while growing up but that didn't mean that they weren't tough as nails or physically strong..just generally leaner...and n many cases better conditoned.