Quote Originally Posted by Dark Lord Al View Post
Are we judging them on what them on historical impact ?? or on who would have beaten who ?

Because if its on who would have beat who , lots of those guys are way to small for the modern era.
That is a great question or two. Debatable but they fit. Those and a few others are why more then any other division I struggle or second guess any hev list I come up with beyond numeric order. Another rather large factor for me is who did they fight and when they fought them. Its for that reason alone that I do not rank Marciano or Holmes as high as most people.

I'm not sure that size difference played the same role as it does today and I think that its largely do to the combatants and the mentality of the day. Especially the original 8 era when fighting bigger men was common place. I guess what I'm saying is that the deer in the headlights look on the faces of most of Wlad opponents would most likely not be apparent on many of the faces of past heavyweights should they be in the same ring. Wlad or Lennox's size would not have intimidated the smaller heavyweights of other eras the way that it seems to do today. Just a different mind set totally.
Having said that intimidated or not you are right. Size would be a big factor but perhaps not as much as one might think.

Thanks for getting me thinking this early in the morning.