Are Modern Heavyweights Really Bigger and Better?
Published Nov 15 2010 by: Rich Thomas | Follow us on Facebook & on Twitter
The conventional wisdom is that heavyweights have been getting steadily bigger over time, and there is something to that notion. Rewind to the 1930s, and the 6'2", 218-lb Max Baer was considered a big heavyweight. Evander Holyfield is about the same size as Max Baer, although today he would only be considered of only average size. The division always had exceptions, of course, but most heavyweights were typically about six feet tall and weighed in between 190 and 200 lbs well into the mid-1960s. It was during the Golden Age of the division, the era of Ali, Foreman and Frazier, that things began to change. During that era, more and more of the heavyweight top ten was made up of men who weighed between 215 and 220 lbs and often stood 6'2" or 6'3".
Why Heavyweights Got Bigger
That shift was natural enough, because the 1960s saw the Baby Boomers come of age. As any competent anthropologist will tell you, the average size within a group of people is tied directly to sustained diet. A population that enjoys a consistent, healthy and ample food supply will start to get larger over successive generations. Studies show that during the Revolutionary War, the typical American was a full two inches taller than the English, Irish, Scottish and German troops who were sent over to fight him. Contrast the typical, modern South Korean, who has enjoyed relative affluence since the 1950s, with the tiny North Koreans living across the border. Before Americans started getting fatter all the time, we were a nation of people who were always getting taller. The Baby Boomers in particular were a generation who enjoyed plenty, so naturally the generation produced a bumper crop of out-sized boxers.
That has produced bigger heavyweights. As previously mentioned, there were always giants standing out among the ranks of the big men of boxing. The 1930s had Primo Carnera (6'6") and the lesser-known Jose Soares Santa (6'9"). Ernie Terrell was a 6'6" Golden Age giant, although he was perhaps most famous for being the recipient of a thrashing at the hands of Muhammad Ali in the famous "what's my name!?" fight. The problem with these big guys was that, like Nikolai Vaulev today, their size advantage was a dubious one. They had height, reach, and sometimes sheer strength. However, they were awkward fighters who were unable to effectively translate their bulk into real punching power. Carnera, for example, was more of a thudding puncher than a cracking, concussive one. Also, their sheer lack of mobility made them standing targets for anyone who could get inside those long, clumsy arms, and their very size sometimes led to stamina problems. The modern era continues to produce similar "super heavyweights" of limited ability, such as the aforementioned Vaulev, Lance Whitaker, Michael Grant, Alexander Dimitrenko and Lou Savarese.
Big Guys in the Modern Era
What makes the current generation and the previous generation of heavyweights so different is that they have managed to produce a couple of super heavyweights each who combined real talent with great size. The previous generation had Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis, and the current generation has the Klitschko brothers. No one would described any of these boxers as plodding heavies who rely only on their size. However, their existence has led to two grossly mistaken generalizations. First is the "bigger is always better" idea, which is easily disproved by examining the records of the aforementioned limited-but-giant heavyweights. Size alone does not guarantee anything in the heavyweight division. Anyone who thinks otherwise should review Dempsey vs. Willard, when a 6'1", 187 lbs Dempsey savagely felled the original super heavyweight, the 6'6", 245 lbs Jess Willard.
Credit: Ed Mulholland
Another false conclusion is the idea that modern heavyweights in general are bigger than their forebears of the recent past. In my recent article Golden Age Heavyweights vs. Modern Heavyweights, one of the points that should have been clear was how most heavyweights from 2005, 1995, 1985 and even 1975 are all basically the same size. Take a look at the Heavyweight Top 10, for example. WBA Champion David Haye, Tomasz Adamek, Alexander Povetkin, Ruslan Chagaev and Eddie Chambers are all heavyweights whose size would be unremarkable if they had fought at any point in the last 40 years. Fighters like Chris Arreola and the unranked Sam Peter are of completely normal height, but greatly inflated weight, and that extra weight is from a mix of weightlifting bulk and fat. Of the current Top 10, only the Klitschkos and Tony Thompson are true super heavyweights, and Thompson may yet prove to be a limited fighter.
The facts bear out that the only remarkable difference in terms of size between the heavyweights of today and those of the last four decades is that there are finally enough men of truly huge proportions around the world that a tiny handful - exactly four by my count - brought a mix of towering size and athleticism to the heavyweight division. Perhaps boxing would have more talented super heavyweights were it not for the NFL, but that is speculative. The rest of the division is made up of men who are about 6'2" or 6'3" and weigh around 220 lbs, and some top fighters who are even smaller. In the past, these men have always produced fighters who posed a substantial threat to even the most talented of super heavies.
In terms of what this means for the modern heavyweight division, we know that Vitali Klitschko (and most likely Wladimir as well) are not objectively better than Lennox Lewis. Ergo, the only conclusion one can draw about the modern division is that it has two good super heavyweights and a crop of (thus far) second-tier normal heavyweights, rather than the very talented yet normal-sized heavies of the past. That scenario does not indicate that today's heavyweights are " bigger, faster and stronger" than their forebears, let alone intrinsically better.
Your analysis fails to take into account the fact that the cruiserweight division was split off from the heavyweight division. Muhammed Ali fought nearly 50% of his fights against fighters that were cruiserweights by today’s standards. Jack Dempsey, Marciano, Floyd Patterson etc etc. were all cruiserweights not heavyweights by today’s standards. Furthermore you can analyze how they performed against fighters above and below the heavyweight limit. Ali, for example, had a much higher KO rate against cruiserweights than against heavyweights. Analysis of the statistics will show that like everything else there is a bell curve, but if you take cruiserweights and heavyweights of today together and compare to the heavyweight divisions of the past you find that the numbers support the idea that fighters are bigger stronger faster today. There is a shift in the Bell curve to show it. The Klitschkos and Lewis are only the point of the curve and so rare with their combination of size and athletiscism that they didn’t exist in past generations. But now there are many more big men who are also great athletes. Old timer copouts like “look at Jess Willard” are just that. Jess Willard was in no way athletic and would get nowhere today. We have Youtubes of these old fights and fighters and with rare exceptions they don’t show superiority over today’s fighters.
What Mike here does is say “you don’t talk about cruiserweights,” when the guy does by implication – he talks about fighters weighing less than 200 lbs. Then he says “you don’t talk about this and that” when he does. Then he talks about stats, but produces nothing of his own. He even says here that Thomas calls Jess Willard a great fighter, when he did nothing of the sort, and doesn’t say a word about beating a guy a 4 stone bigger!
Wanker.
P.S. – he also made your point about “many more big men who are also great athletes” and named them. What exactly is your problem, other than being a stubborn pillock.
Oh yes – Ken Norton, George Foreman, Ron Lyle, Earnie Shavers, George Chuvalo, Sonny Liston, Joe Bugner, Larry Holmes, Ernie Terrell and Cleveland Williams were all 190 pounder cruiserweights! How could anyone have ever thought otherwise *insert rolling eyes here*
Mike, you should think again before you use that Bell Curve thing. The article makes the same claim, more or less – that people got bigger and that produced some outliers (extreme examples) like the Klitschkos. You then go on to claim a bell curve of a different shape, providing no proof that this different curve exists or why it exists. By the way, for your theory to be correct, an increase in population should produce an increase in outliers? We saw that when the old Communist countries came into the picture, so why are there still only a few super heavies? There should be many more.
Vitali Klitschko is a much better fighter than he is perceived to be by most boxing analysts in the USA and England. Might be the a little bit of unintentional bias. Newsflash: The Cold War is Over. Even Ross Greenburg, top executive for HBO sports, puts the Klitschko brothers down by saying he can’t tell them apart. A decision was made a few months ago that none of the Klitschko’s fights would be on HBO, even though though the Vitali Klitschko vs Chris Arreola fight in Sept of 2009 had very high ratings. There is a built in bias in the media against these two Ukranian fighters that can’t help but influence boxing writers and fans in the USA. The German fans on the other hand hold both of the Klitschko’s in very high esteem. If you think the people are not influenced by the media, check out David Haye and the perception of the British boxing fans that he is this great fighter who if given the opportunity would knock out either of the Klitschko’s. Let’s take a collective reality check. Vitali Klitschko has never been knocked down, has never been behind in a fight and has the highest KO percentage of any heavyweight champion in history. True he lost to Lennox Lewis when the fight was stopped on cuts, after which Lewis promptly retired. This was Vitali’s coming out party so to speak. He had never fought at that level of competition before. He is a vastly improved fighter from where he was in 2003. He has totally dominated every opponent he has faced to the extent that he had not lost a round since he returned to the ring in 2008 to destroy Sam Peter. What do the boxing writers and fans attribute this to? Oh they say that the opposition he has faced is not up to par, even though the fighters in every other division are getting better, the heavyweight division stinks. All I can say to that is rubbish. Vitali dominates his opposition because he is so much better that he makes them look inept, similar to what Joe Louis did in his 1941 “Bum of the Month Club”. Get real. Why is it that only the Germans perceive this?
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