I think these guys, because of modern advances, can weigh whatever they want regardless of where nature might have put them. guys like Usyk would have been career heavyweights if they started as recently as the 1990s. Yet he has proven he has the tools as is.
Yeah, I hear you on that - I assume you’re including PEDs as part of mod. advances or perhaps not? I would think there would still have to be some limitation on size gain (at least in so far as remaining viable and functional for boxing) even if the gains possible today are greater than they ever were before. Yeah. I just plugged those stats in an attempt to fix on the most problematic natural size between CW and HW but as you say, there are avenues to dramatically increase one’s size - but in all possibility, at best (or worst) said fighter still might be facing a behemoth some 4 inches taller and about 30 lbs heavier than themselves.
Old Heavyweights still exist. But not in their own division. Like the giant, They carry more weight than before in order to compete with a size of athlete that could never have exist before. Now it is the old heavyweight that is hindered. To be fair, it was harder for giants under the old ways. At elite level they were competing with smaller guys who fought a lot more often, wore smaller gloves, who hit them more often they could. They got tired. The training then robbed them of their strength..a strength that was less boxing specific than can be achieved now.
all giant look bad until seeing them winning fight. not pretty . Joe Joyce latest example. too slow plodder swing wild punch . lack normal defensive. say 'easy to hit "" . until when he win impress 2 or 3 fight & then story change of Joe Joyce " top stamina ' & ' Force of the nature"" . haha .
You might have it backwards. I think the boxing coaches knew better how to teach smaller fighters how to fight taller and bigger opponents in the old days. Today almost everyone fights in the straight up style. Really makes it almost impossible to handle a tall man with a good jab. In the old days the short guy would have gone into a deep crouch to negate the height and reach advantage by being too low to be effectively jabbed. And the willingness of the modern refs to allow excessive clinching works to the advantage of the bigger man. He simply grabs the smaller man when he gets inside. As for the lack of coordination, as has been posted, the sheer number of big men in modern boxing points to better athletes showing up. I think also supplements help the bigger men more. They aren't tall and gangly anymore. They are big all over. Even their muscles have muscles as the cliche goes. Supplements making the shorter guy heavier also works to negate his biggest advantage. The weight slows him down.
A couple of guys speculated in an article a few years back that Carnera had acromegaly. One of the foremost experts on the disease from Australia responded with an statement that there is no evidence at all that Carnera had the disease. You make a good point about Carnera staying active in wrestling until he was well into his fifties. His health problems at the end seem to have been rooted in kidney problems and excessive drinking.
"It helped both sizes." Not so certain of that. The small man loses speed and flexibility and perhaps stamina. It is not clear what the big guy loses while he goes from gangly to muscular.
It is said that NBA players haven't gotten taller. I was watching a tape of the 1969 championship game between the Celtics and the Lakers. I was reminded who played, at least down the stretch, and looked up their heights now. Here they are for a comparison with a modern team. Celtics: G---Sam Jones 6' 4" G---Larry Siegfried 6' 3" F---Don Nelson 6' 6" F---John Havlicek 6' 5" C---Bill Russell 6' 10" * (actually between 6' 9" and 6' 10" so no Celtic was clearly 6' 10") Lakers: G---Johnny Egan 6' 0" G---Jerry West 6' 3" F---Elgin Baylor 6' 5" F---Keith Erickson 6' 5" C---Wilt Chamberlain 7' 1" These are the guys who were playing in the 4th quarter. Don't know if they were the starters. I am no expert, but these seem to be shorter lineups than today. Only one guy over 6' 5" for the Lakers, and only one guy over 6' 6" for the Celtics. What do you young guys who are up to speed on the modern NBA think about these heights? Chamberlain twisted his knee late and was replaced by Mel Counts, who was 7' for the last five minutes or so.
These teams are bigger than 2022 finalists. I really don't get why we look at specific teams when we have average heights for whole leagues.
They are! That surprises me, but okay. Thanks. As for your question, these were the best teams. A losing team with a 7' 3" guy like Swede Hanson on the bench can distort an average. It is true the Lakers had two 7 footers playing center, which I think was very rare back then.
You look at college weight... Wilt Chamberlain didn't weigh 260 lbs in 1969. Bill Russell didn't weigh 220 lbs in 1969. What's so tough in that to understand? I spent years to study that era of basketball, you just looked at basketball-reference page.