Would you consider Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield fitter and more athletic than 70s/80s fighters

We rate them in an absolute sense; not pound for pound. We ignore whether they took PEDs, since none of them were caught during their careers. If their opponents had to deal with the roided-up versions, then those are the versions we should deal with, too.

As to the chunky Lewis question, you can certainly qualify your assessment that Lewis *at his best* was a certain level of athlete, and chunky Lewis was a different level.

Feel free to use whatever definition of athleticism / fitness that you generally use, since part of the point of this thread is to hash out what the forum means when they use those terms.

 

Probably right, and that absence of difference between the strength of all these guys is one of the more interesting results of this. We talk a lot on here about how this fighter or that fighter was enormously strong. But you know, there's not a giant difference among these people. None of them is putting up poundages in the 300 range, or even the higher 200s. Holyfield on an average day -- and, incidentally, a bigger incarnation of Holyfield than his "stronger" 1989 version -- is putting up the same weight as Bugner. Holyfield's roughly in the same range of what an older Quarry put up on one of Quarry's better outings. Marvis Frazier is even with Mike Weaver despite the latter's reputation for being this huge, muscular guy. Lennox can't even get above 200. And so on.

Eyeballing strength in the ring seems like it just plain doesn't tell us much in absolute terms about strength. When you cut out all the variables of skill, durability, stamina, and the rest, you're left with people who physically aren't that different from one another. Some might complain that the Superstars competition wasn't a perfect test. Well, OK, that's true. But it's a more accurate test than watching two guys shoving each other in the ring and trying to figure it out that way. It's all we've got, too, since we don't have any other weight competitions from these guys...and it's interesting how consistent it is.

 

It adds an interesting twist, doesn't it?

Could be that the heavyweight division of the 70s era selected for guys who were already strong people. Frazier was getting 160 with a screwed up arm, and I doubt he ever trained with weights. I don't think they were all using weights and steroids in the 1970s.

Just because I was curious, I Googled push press standards, and found what appears to be some random app that collects (alleged) numbers for regular, non-professional-athlete lifters:

https://strengthlevel.com/strength-standards/push-press/lb

Although...interestingly, one of the rare guys who is in the "novice" category for his weight is Lennox Lewis.

Anyway...weights or not, steroids or not, the results were surprising to me.

 

Also, Norton was actually 220, same as Holyfield's 1993 performance, better than Holyfield's other 90s performance, and only somewhat less than Holyfield's personal best 240 in 1989.

...I think Shane Mosley competed in one of the Superstars competitions, but I just didn't do the lighter weights. Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns definitely did.

 

Yep, I hear you. The only thing the Norton people have in their favor is that Norton had a bigger frame than Holyfield...at least in the sense that he was an inch taller. Weaver has no similar excuse.

One might try instead to claim that Holyfield was just not a naturally strong man at the start. (When he fails a lifting attempt in the early 80s Superstars.) I guess that's possible, but he's clearly athletic enough to be a decorated amateur in the 80s, so I'd have my doubts about any line of argument claiming Holyfield was some 97 pound weakling before PEDs.

 

Superstars always had weird standards. Should've been the three powerlifts plus the major footrace distances.

That said, I tend to agree. It says a little more about explosive strength, which you'd expect elite boxers to be better at than a guy off the street. But it's not perfect.

Still, better than staring at Cleveland Williams's muscles and trying to imagine what his poundages on a bench would be. In the absence of anything better, their push press scored are more suggestive than anything else we have about their genuine strength levels.

 

All that said, I do find the clustering of Weaver, Holyfield, and Norton together to be interesting. All of these guys are similar sized guys known for being athletic. They're not very different from each other, with the exception that Weaver's sprint time is really good (he was a puncher, as was Shavers, who also has a very good sprint time), and Holyfield might be a tiny bit stronger.

EDIT: Marvis Frazier too, who wasn't regarded as all that special.

 

Oh, on Joe Frazier's strength, we actually have an interesting followup done in a kind of "Masters" division for Superstars in 1988. Frazier was 44 at the time. Maybe he lifted by that point; maybe he didn't. Either way, he still put up 165 pounds on that occasion, which is actually more than what he did in 1973 when he was mostly in his physical prime.

So. I would agree that he may well have been stronger than his 160 pound lift in 1973 would indicate. But who knows.