Boxers who have increased power as they moved up in weight?

hangulmalmotayo

hangulmalmotayo

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In light of recent fights where a lower weight class fighter moves up one or two weight classes (often claiming to be feeling stronger and increasing in power as they gain weight), I've been wondering whether, historically, there have been instances of boxers actually demonstrating greater power as they moved up. Anyone?
 
hangulmalmotayo said:
In light of recent fights where a lower weight class fighter moves up one or two weight classes (often claiming to be feeling stronger and increasing in power as they gain weight), I've been wondering whether, historically, there have been instances of boxers actually demonstrating greater power as they moved up. Anyone?
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Tommy Hearns? Manny Pacquiao? You'd think that anyone that put lean weight on would punch harder than they did before so I'm assuming you mean getting KO's.
 
none I can really think of, they say Camacho gained power as he moved up but level of comp is a factor. Sometimes a guy who was a mover at a lighter weight (like Macho) will sit down a bit more too and that may give the impression of extra power. there have been some fighters who've still shown some power but of course they aren't going to be the same going up 10-15 pounds. Tommy Hearns had a string of decisions before kayoing duran and people thought he could kayo the naturally bigger Hagler, Hagler was hurt but able to go through hearn's big punch but more importantly, he was strong enough to control the fight, bulling Hearns around, tiring him out and finally kayoing him. Arguello looked like he kept his power when he went up to 140, he looked impressive kayoing Rooney but he couldn't drop Pryor. Holyfield was actually a damn good puncher at cruiser and in the ammies, when he moved up to the big boys his power suffered big time.
 
I can think of guys who carried their power reasonably up to higher weights, but a guy who increased his power? The only guy in any sport I can think of who did that was Rumble Johnson in MMA.

I guess there are instances where guys were at a certain weight class when they were teenagers and at a higher weight during physical prime (25-30), and hit harder due to physical maturity. It can certainly argued that SRR hit harder as a 25 year old WW than he did as an 18 year old LW. It can certainly be said Roy Jones was hitting harder as a 25 year old 168lber than he did as a 154lb teenager.
 
DannyNL said:
I can think of guys who carried their power reasonably up to higher weights, but a guy who increased his power? The only guy in any sport I can think of who did that was Rumble Johnson in MMA.

I guess there are instances where guys were at a certain weight class when they were teenagers and at a higher weight during physical prime (25-30), and hit harder due to physical maturity. It can certainly argued that SRR hit harder as a 25 year old WW than he did as an 18 year old LW. It can certainly be said Roy Jones was hitting harder as a 25 year old 168lber than he did as a 154lb teenager.
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Thanks for the helpful replies, all.

I had in mind Amir Khan and Kell Brook who have both claimed to have felt 'stronger' at the higher weight class. (Andre Ward said something similar moving up to LHW.) So I've been wondering whether someone deciding to spontaneously move up a weight class or two has actually proven to be stronger higher up. I think there is a subtle distinction to be made between people who are maturing/still growing physically versus people who are just putting on pounds. But maybe not.
 
Almost every fighter hits harder if you put more mass on them. Relative to the division, they're still hitting less hard as chins get better when a different size of body frame is in the division, but they're all going to hit harder as they put on mass.
 
hangulmalmotayo said:
Thanks for the helpful replies, all.

I had in mind Amir Khan and Kell Brook who have both claimed to have felt 'stronger' at the higher weight class. (Andre Ward said something similar moving up to LHW.) So I've been wondering whether someone deciding to spontaneously move up a weight class or two has actually proven to be stronger higher up. I think there is a subtle distinction to be made between people who are maturing/still growing physically versus people who are just putting on pounds. But maybe not.
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Everyone claims to be "stronger" when they go up in weight (especially these days when guys are cutting fuck-stupid amounts of weight to try to gain an advantage) but often as not (as mozfonky already alluded to) their observable power is negated 'cos now they're hitting bigger guys better able to absorb their punches.

Or, in the case of modern fighters who weight-jump, all of a sudden they are hitting guys their own size rather than guys who are "naturally" 20lbs lighter, so it's like their "power" mysteriously evaporates...
 
@slimpickenz84 JMM is a Duran-kinda case imo. Beautiful technique behind every shot, he was always hurting you at whatever weight.

As I said in the other thread, fat-arse Duran at middle threw some of the sweetest right hands you ever could wish for to deck Barkley. Much the same with JMM, he was sitting down like a motherfucker on those punches as he got older & heavier & because the technique was always there whatever they hit, they hurt.

I think he was always a natural banger, is what I'm getting at, but he concentrated more on it rather than throwing like sixteen uppercuts in a row in combination like when he was a featherweight, whereas at lightweight/welter it was one or two at a time.
 
slimpickenz84 said:


Tell Michael Katsidis that....

[IMG]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zz3p63WSXZE/TPHiOU42pVI/AAAAAAAAAf0/SI1r3TLxWN4/s1600/7.gif[/IMG]
[IMG]http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_zz3p63WSXZE/TPHjAOvpkZI/AAAAAAAAAgE/-87AcLQ37-U/s1600/9.gif[/IMG]

Lol

Good post though.
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Ha, true dat, as ver kidz say.

He also threw some crazy combos vs Diaz (like three left uppercuts in a row, then a double right hand, head then body!)... But I just remember against Barrera at super-feather, when he got him in trouble it just looked like the tape had been cut & stitched together, shot after shot after shot.
 
hangulmalmotayo said:
Thanks for the helpful replies, all.

I had in mind Amir Khan and Kell Brook who have both claimed to have felt 'stronger' at the higher weight class. (Andre Ward said something similar moving up to LHW.) So I've been wondering whether someone deciding to spontaneously move up a weight class or two has actually proven to be stronger higher up. I think there is a subtle distinction to be made between people who are maturing/still growing physically versus people who are just putting on pounds. But maybe not.
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of course they feel stronger, they don't have to starve and dehydrate as much, but if they are fighting men that are naturally bigger, it negates that.
 
wilddeuces said:
I'm looking at this thread and the one about punching power (http://forums.sherdog.com/threads/i...most-unexplained-phenomena-in-sports.3311999/) and I'm trying to reconcile the thoughts in both.

Even though guys get bigger and stronger as they move up in weight they typically lose their power (combination of lost speed and bigger guys taking the punch).
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they move up usually because it gets harder to cut weight as they get older but their bones don't change, their structure doesn't change so now they have to hit naturally bigger, taller, stronger men. It might not matter if they weren't fighting equally skilled people but they usually are and most of the time, the size doesn't work to their advantage.
 
StickAndMove said:
Tommy Hearns? Manny Pacquiao? You'd think that anyone that put lean weight on would punch harder than they did before so I'm assuming you mean getting KO's.
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I don't think pac's power got greater as he went up, he just got better at landing his shots. Watch his fight with Saskul, he was getting schooled the whole way through, but he landed a big shot and got Saskul out of there. Pac had a lot of power at 112, he was just super raw.
 
wilddeuces said:
Fuck. Look at how he moves backwards throwing those combinations. Awesome stuff.
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That's his bread and butter. Unfortunately, his weakness was fighters who made him lead, like Floyd. Even Floyd admitted Marquez was too dangerous to get aggressive with.

I'm really gonna miss watching Marquez fight when he's all done. He's been the best combination puncher in the sport for a while now. Nobody puts em together the way he does anymore.
 
guys like pac make me wonder though if the roids and stuff do help. I used to think they didn't, because Vinny paz, and evander, both guys who pretty much lied a bout it but took roids, couldn't punch with the extra weight/strength. But in baseball, roids help the guys hit harder, you'd think that it might be possible for that to be the case in boxing too. I'm inclined to believe though that it doesn't really help. Pac just had such a natural reserve that he could grind guys down with his pace, the Hatton kayo was an anomaly.
 
mozfonky said:
guys like pac make me wonder though if the roids and stuff do help. I used to think they didn't, because Vinny paz, and evander, both guys who pretty much lied a bout it but took roids, couldn't punch with the extra weight/strength. But in baseball, roids help the guys hit harder, you'd think that it might be possible for that to be the case in boxing too. I'm inclined to believe though that it doesn't really help. Pac just had such a natural reserve that he could grind guys down with his pace, the Hatton kayo was an anomaly.
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I think they help with punching power, Marquez was lifting pacman off the damn ground with his shots thanks to his "strength and conditioning" Regimen that included a back full of acne. Jessie Vargas was a relatively light puncher earlier as well and all of the sudden he got with Heredia and got that back full of acne package and started lifting ppl off the ground aswell. Of course neither one are proven though

For real though, thats a good example, if it increases batting power, it most definitely has to increase punching power in my opinion. if you can swing a bat harder with more acceleration, you can swing ur fists harder with more acceleration
 
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