By Troy Ondrizek

Boxing is full of myths and lore.  A storied sport that has captured imaginations for generations and where two completely different stories can derive from the same fight.  There are many misnomers in the sport that we hear all the time.  Individuals such as Mike Tyson wouldn’t have mentally melted down had Cus D’mato not passed away.  Or how any “old-timer” could come along and beat every current fighter with both their hands tied behind their backs. Or that the IBHOF is requires to induct undeserving candidates just to have some every year.  Truth is, once an idea becomes popular, people will blindly adhere to it like a bunch of religious zealots.  Well its time to realize that one truth is actually a myth, a little debunking we are about to do.

During the summer of 1988 in beautiful Seoul Korea we were witnesses to the future of heavyweight boxing.  Riddick Bowe of the United States was beaten by Lennox Lewis of Canada in the super-heavyweight gold medal bout.  The fight might’ve been stopped a bit prematurely, but Lewis was undoubtedly winning the bout.  With that moment the division was changed forever, or so we thought.

Bowe and Lewis were very talented amateurs and both men stood at 6’5” and they defied the previous rule of Carnera; that all big guys while strong - are slow and cumbersome in the ring.  Bowe and Lewis definitely were neither slow nor cumbersome, and that was portrayed throughout their careers.  Theory suggested that men are just bigger these days and athletes will just keep getting bigger and bigger, its true, athletes are bigger than even ten years ago.  In the era of dietary sciences and steroids, athletes have gotten substantially stronger and faster, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to positive results or dominance inside the ring.  And while Lewis was the dominant champion of his era and Bowe could’ve been had he had some balls or not eaten himself out of contention, they are actually exceptions and not the rule.

We can take a look back at all the great heavyweight champions and realize most would be cruiserweights or “light” heavyweights in today’s game.  Rocky Marciano and Floyd Patterson would be a little light for the cruiserweights and if you look down the ledger of Muhammad Ali’s career, you will find several guys less than 200lbs.  Hell, even “monsters” like Sonny Liston and George Foreman topped out in their primes at 220lbs. 

The heavyweight fighter has just become a bigger man, but is bigger better?  I mean many think that several guys today are good fighters but they can’t compete because if a big man (roughly 240lb-250lb) possess’ some skill that the smaller heavyweights (210-225) just really don’t stand a chance.  And that this trend of bigger and bigger heavyweights will truly never end.  Well reality is that skill will overcome size.  I’ve said this several times and will say it over and over again; the future of the heavyweight division is that it’s starting to go to the skilled “smaller” guys and will for the next ten years. 

I make that bold statement for several reasons.  Well let’s look at the current heavyweight title holders.  There is the “Big-O” Oleg Maskaev; while he is listed as 6’3” we see basically eye to eye and I’m 6’0”.  Now I will say he is very broad and all of the 235 or so pounds he weighs for his fights, but he is a stocky man.  Same goes for the best young contender Samuel Peter, he is about 5’11” but is a monster around the shoulders and abdomen I’ll give him that, but he could stand to slim down a bit. 

Then we have the two titlists fighting in the first unification bout in eight years; Sultan Ibragimov and Ruslan Chagaev.  Ibragimov is smaller than me and is no where near the 6’2” that is recorded and truthfully is very svelte at 215 or so pounds.  Chagaev is as big as advertised and hits harder than people assume, but hey it’s hard to look good against Ruiz and Valuev.  Even though Chagaev tips the scales at 230, he can easily shed a little adipose tissue and come in at about 215 or 220lbs.  Then there is the consensus number one heavyweight, Wladimir Klitschko who is every bit of 6’6” and a very solid 245 lbs which he stays at year round.  Even though he is the top heavyweight, there will definitely be some room for debate between Klitschko and the winner of the unification fight between Chagaev and Ibragimov. 

These fighters while small for today’s standards are still bigger than the heavyweights of yesteryear, and that is true, but they’re not as big as the behemoths that many thought would roam the landscape until a comet or a flood would come and eradicate them.  In all honesty none of these men are little, just in comparison.

No dynasty lasts unless there are heirs and all the heir apparents in the heavyweight division are of the smaller mold.  Guys like Eddie Chambers, Chris Arreola, Taras Bidenko, Denis Boytsov, Mike Mollo, and the top heavyweight prospect Alexander Povetkin are all under 230lbs (with the exception being Arreola, but he is a better fighter now that he is down to 230). 

The only prospects that are as the “experts” call the prototypical heavyweight, is Alexander Dimitrenko (who is boring as hell), Travis Walker, and the unproven J.D. Chapman.  The talent level and better fighters are clearly the “smaller” guys.  There are also a handful of cruiserweights that are very skilled and young that will move up to the heavyweights when their bodies mature. 

I really don’t see the near future of the heavyweight division being filled with the giants that many have spoken of, but a dominant “prototypical” heavyweight will soon be dwelling with the likes of Bigfoot, Nessie, and Chupacabra.  Of all the giants that came along with Lewis and Bowe; Briggs, Rahman, Tua, Ibeabuchi, Golota, Grant, Sullivan, Wilson, Nicholson, and V. Klitschko; some you may have heard of, some maybe not.

Some held the linear title (Briggs, and Rahman), most held nothing.  However, to look at this list one generally thinks of how all of these fighters never lived up to hype and that can be said of any fighter no matter the size.  Though these were the titans that were to rule the division and create legends; instead they are footnotes in heavyweight history and the punchline to many jokes.  While Lewis and Bowe followed through on their promise and dominated for some time, small guys like Tyson and especially Evander Holyfield found success against the big boys and Holyfield cemented his legacy during Lewis and Bowe’s era. 

A talented big man is a nice novelty, they aren’t the rule, and their reign had the same lasting effect as the Confederacy’s; there will always be people who claim their greatness, but history proves otherwise.