Wladimir Klitschko vs. Rocky Marciano

Rajon Rondo

It is Eddy Curry who didn't play much.

One thing to remember though, there were only 8 NBA and 12 NFL teams in the 1950's, so big men who could play should have been more concentrated.

I don't think there should really be much dispute that modern athletes are much bigger.

 

on heights,

Union soldiers in the American Civil War averaged 5' 7"

WWII inductees averaged 5' 8"

According to the WHO these are some current average male hts 20-39

Canada---------5' 8.5"
Denmark--------5' 11.1"
France----------5' 8.5"
Germany--------5' 10"
Italy------------5' 9"
Netherlands-----6'
New Zealand----5' 9.7"
United Kingdom--5' 9.6"
USA------------5' 10.2"

Although John Komlos seems to draw a lot of conclusions about income inequality, etc about the USA, in fact young US males according to the WHO are taller than those of France, Germany, Italy, or the United Kingdom.

**Americans might eat too much junk food, but a trip to the grocery store shows a spectacular display of fruits, vegatables, meats, dairy products, etc, and most of this is cheaper than the junk food. If Americans eat poorly, to a great extent it is because they choose to.

 

No there shouldn't, its no secret that as people have evolved over time they have gotten bigger.

 

Remember the old Scotty Pippen commercial where he's playing in the 1950's and the recruiter says... "Son, you could make hundreds of dollars playing this game"?

Well, now, it's millions for not even playing very well, and many millions more if you get a shoe deal... and many, many millions more if the shoe company gets the right endorser. So, the recruitment has been ratcheted up about a billion fold.

I even heard an interview last week with Kobe Bryant lamenting the demise of the big man, asking "Where did they all go? It's like someone pushed a button and they disappeared." He was speaking entering the league in an era of Shaq, Rik Smits, Ewing, Mourning...

From my Google warrior research, it seems the height of the average adult US male is in fact going down, even accounting for immigration, due to sedentary lifestyle and poor diet (junk food), two problems from which Marciano did not suffer. You can follow the links I posted above to read more.

If you take further in consideration that he was the son of immigrants from Abruzzo and Campania, both in Southern Italy, you will realize he already was a giant for that particular gene pool. Having often visited there I can attest anecdotally that the folks just aren't that tall down there. Statistically, men in Southern Italy still only average 5 foot 8, about the same as Japan.

And again, the point has been made, that all the conjuring, compensating and imagining has nothing to do with Marciano, the actual fighter.

 

"men in Southern Italy still only average 5 foot 8"

Yes and I agree that there is no way of telling if Marciano would have grown taller today.


"height of the average adult American male is going down"

This is not what I found.

CDC (Center for Disease Control) has the average adult American male going from 5' 8" in 1960 to slightly over 5' 9.5" in 2006. That is not getting shorter by any means.

WHO--has the average adult American male between 20-39 at 5' 10.2", taller than Great Britain, France, Italy, or Germany, or in fact most of the rest of the world. This despite a significant percentage of Mexican-Americans who average 5' 7" and pull the total average down.

Army--Komlos seems to be selecting facts here. The average soldier in the Civil War was 5' 7". In WWII it was 5' 8". I don't know what the average soldier would be today, but off the WHO figures, if a cross-section it should be about 5' 10". If it is not, the volunteer army is shorter than the average male while the conscript armies were not. That is possible. Those turning to the army as a way out and a way up would probably be from the lower classes, and upper class folks tend to be taller, all other factors equal. The conscript army was everyone with the sickly (who I assume would average shorter) weeded out.

 

"the point has been made, that all the conjuring, compensating and imagining has nothing to do with Maricano"

Who swept his era and retired with a perfect record while Wlad has been ko'd three times and Vitali twice.

That can't be changed either.

 

The height of the American male lead movie actors has gone down.
Loads more of the old-time movie stars were 6'2 and 6'3. Greg Peck, Joel McCrea, Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, James Stewart.
Even Clark Gable was 6'. Cary Grant 6'1. Burt Lancaster 6' or more.
Short ones like Cagney and Bogart were rare.
John Wayne was 6'4. So was Robert Ryan.

Nowadays most of the big movie stars are under 6', or so it seems.
There might be a technical reason for that, I dunno.

It's interesting. If John Wayne was born 60 years later he'd be like 7 foot tall.
(but he probably wouldn't shoot as many 'injuns')

 

Which fighter got dropped by a blown up lhw that has been dropped 4 times by a blown up welterweight?
Charley Burley knocked Archie Moore down for 4 times , in the 1st, 3rd and 4th rounds.

 

It is not evolution which causes the gains in size. It is health care, nutrition, etc.

The average height of a Englishman actually declined 3 inches between the 12th and the 18th centuries, according to John Komlos. The cause was poorer nutrition apparently caused by the Little Ice Age stunting crops. Cold, hard winters and early frosts tend to reduce food stock.

Americans also had a reverse in the 19th century due to urbanization. Folks on farms not only had plenty of farm products to eat, but access to plentiful game. City folks were less well fed and so smaller.

Will there be a reverse in the future? It is possible. I can think of two possible causes:

1--better medical care. Komlos sees a shorter population as a sign of poorer medical care, but to some extent the reverse might be true. If premature babies survive because of good care, there are likely to be less healthy through life and so probably will be shorter and pull down the average height in adulthood.

But I think most would take 60 fairly healthy years at three or so inches below the average height to dying in the first day or two after birth.

2--birth control--has allowed folks to put off having children until later in life. This might be wonderful for partying during your salad days, but is a health disaster for the children. Stats show that babies born to older mothers have many more health problems. And dad is at fault also. It seems sperm deteriorates with age and so an older father passes on many more genetic defects than his younger self would.

This factor already shows for folks at 30 versus 20, but becomes a very great problem when the parents pass 35 and from there on it is all downhill.

So I can see how the effects of birth control elevating the age of parents might in the long run lead to a shorter (and more sickly) population.

 

So you are criticizing Moore for his performance against Burley?

Well, Burley is a Hall-of-Famer who many feel was so good Robinson avoided him. Moore was 2 inches taller and six pounds heavier for this fight and went the distance.

On the other hand, Vitali Klitschko, despite being six inches taller and 34 lbs heavier, was stopped by the puffed up lightheavy Chris Byrd. Byrd was dropped three times and stopped at lightheavy by Shaun George.

Size seems to be your only criteria. It is not mine when going decades back and forth through history.

Moore, by the way, scored more ko's than anyone in boxing history. An odd pick to use to criticize a man's chin, especially when they were about the same size.

 

His record at lightheavyweight is great. Unfortunately Wlad is a superheavyweight and Rocky has no tools to close distance or anything at all on his record to indicate how he would fare against a true heavyweight. It is completely speculative and pretty illogical given his hardships and stylistic limitations to think that he would manage much of anything against Wlad.

 

Yes, there is no agreement one this point. Here is another article...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/04/usa

or read the precis to this work.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2007.00458.x/abstract

It seems the US has stagnated at best in growth and fallen behind in regards to European countries. Perhaps we should wonder how tall Marciano would have been were he born in the Netherlands? How tall would Wlad have been were he born in the Netherlands.

I think at this point we begin to realize how silly this question is. The Marciano who reigned was stout sub-6 footer with T-Rex like arms and the reach of a decent lightweight. I boldly propose he does not do well against modern super heavyweight, especially those very skilled, and perhaps even those of lesser skill.

 

Between 2 good guys whose other attributes are equal the bigger man will win.
With other attributes I mean things like speed, footwork, skill etc.

Also Vitali is overrated, and Wlad isn't Vitali.

 

You left off the other half of what I said. I don't see size as relevant when you are talking about fighters who were never even alive at the same time.

You only live in your own world in your own time. Marciano was big enough to beat anyone in the world he lived in w/o losing. Neither Wlad nor Vitali can say as much,

despite being big while Marciano was small even for his own era.

 

Of the two issues, the more interesting

1---Americans heights are declining--neither of these articles prove that or even address it. Komlos does not list the heights of various European countries except the Netherlands. But the Dutch are tall compared to the Brits, French, Italians, Germans, or even Swedes. His conclusion about health care seems flawed and tendentious. Japanese-American women live longer than Japanese-Japanese women and in fact at a life-expectency of over 87 years are the longest lived group of such size in the world. How is this possible if the American health care system is so bad. And sure the Dutch are taller than Americans, but they are taller than the French and Germans also and the Germans at least seem a better genetic comparision than America with its huge Latin and Asian populations.

If the relative gap between Americans and the Brits, French, etc was greater in the 18th and 19th centuries, the narrowing of this gap is not because Americans are shrinking but because these countries are getting taller, but Americans are still on the average taller.

**that said, I am certain bad habits such as smoking or eating junk food does hurt growth.

***bottom line--according to the CDC, the height of the average American male has increased from 5' 8" to a bit over 5' 9.5" since 1960. This does seem like a good source.

2--"I boldly propose that he does not do well against modern super heavyweights"

Irrelevant as his world didn't include anything "modern" including modern super-heavyweights. A modern super-heavyweight should be judged on how he competes against other modern superheavyweights, not flipping back into a vanished world of decades ago.

**The best analogy I can think of is criticizing an elephant for being too small to survive in the world of dinosaurs. But why must it? An adult elephant is so big in its world that it has no serious predators,

(other than men with guns)