Would Joe Frazier Size Have Hindered Him, If He'd Come Along After The 1980s?

Exactly BCS8, brilliant post and it highlights the real issues. The only reason we have weight classes and drug testing is because the smaller fighters have too much advantage over the big ones. Inoue and Loma would wreck Fury and Usyk if allowed to fight them. And the drug testing is done so that fighters who don't use PEDs won't have a huge advantage over the users. After all Frazier went tooth and nail with blubbery 243 pound Buster Mathis before stopping him late, just imagine what he could do to a lean 255 pounder like Joshua or a guy Fury's size...? The bigger, the more PEDs the fighter uses, the bigger advantage the old timers will have. Marciano? Don't even want to think about the damage a 183 pounder with two left feet would bring to the modern boxers. He might even be able to overcome his size advantage and beat Inoue?

Smaller, weaker, and slower are the keys to boxing, Bigger, Stronger, Faster are for all other sports, but boxing unlike other sports peaked in the 1890s and has been going downhill since, and since the 60s, the time of the first big, strong, fast guy, heavyweight boxing has fallen off a cliff. You'd think that somebody would go back to the smaller, slower, weaker model but so far they are just getting bigger, stronger and faster. The sky is the limit for a true throw back!

 

We need Jock "Yukon" Jockson back for that old school mining toughness. There's nothing like a 5'8 miner that drives in claim pegs all day to develop that classic grit. These fighters after 1850 are all soft as pudding.

 

He'd be a terror at cruiser. I could totally buy him running rampant at that weight class. I'd even buy into his having success against bigger heavies, sporadically. But with his style, going nose to nose with guys 50lb heavier than him every fight, he's going to get sent to the morgue sooner or later.

 

You nailed it, they just aren't like the old timers. I don't know as much about the pre-1890s, but boxing is not what it was, and I'm sure it was better in the 1850s. Back when there were guys who could drink all day, smoke 4 packs a day and get into the ring with another guy who did the same and win. Jockson sounds like a real man. As a miner I'm sure he had it all physically, did he have the other things that make a fighter great, no defense, no footwork, etc.? If so I bet a lot of people on this board would like to see him on film, but I suppose that there is no film from the 1850s?

 

I hear that 'Raggedy' Al Scribbler made a whole series of sketches of Jockson fighting. He stacked the paper sketches sequentially so that you can riffle the pages and get a very accurate and almost realistic impression of how Jockson fought. You can really appreciate the power that the old dude carried.

 

Padded boxing started in the 1880s good sir.

 

Brings a tear to my eye, would love to hear Burt Sugar, Howard Cosell, and Ferdie Pacheco's thoughts on those "Scribbler" drawings. Those are guys who really knew the mechanics of boxing, we don't have those boxing minds anymore either. Cosell didn't follow the others and call them jabs like the new guys do, he called them "left leads." What a boxing mind he had. I bet Sugar and Pacheco would also see things from those rifled drawings that the newer boxers and trainers couldn't pick up. I bet there are going to be a lot of people revamping their ratings since you've told us about Jockson, sounds like he might be #1 PFP and Heavyweight. Do you think he might have been too much for even John L.? Have you seen the drawings?

 

Unfortunately the drawings 61 through 72 are missing, which is where he KO'd "Rusty" Ray Robson, the famous bar brawler. So while you can't see that haymaker thrown from the floor connect, old Scribbler really gets the idea of Jockson's power across by the drawings of stars and little birds flying in a circle over Rusty's head. He wouldn't have drawn all those stars without a reason. Back then ink was expensive. So even though the figures look stick-man like, he did take trouble drawing those stars in. That's how they did it in 1850!

 

That's when they went all soft

 

The lost generation ruined everything.

 

I think this nails it--agree 100% that size and style differences at some point would eventually catch up with Joe.

 

A lot of those pituitary cases have been seen huffing & puffing after four rounds.

 

Size is ALWAYS a factor among fighters, sure smaller men have beaten bigger men, but that's not the same as today's "Land of the GIANTS verses Normal Size 6' - 6'3" HW's...

6 inches to 9 inch Height & REACH always favour the bigger Top Fighters, though that is a generous assessment 'Top' for most of that Subpar Division.

it's time people stopped with Historic match ups, they are 2 Completely Different Divisions - Normal Size HW's and Giant S-HW's, separate divisions and skill levels generally speaking.

 

Yet same height & fifteen pounds heavier Mike Tyson would be picked by at least half of you to tear through the division if he were at his 86-88 best. Go figure.