im surprised that since you admitted to being a personal trainer (or something to that effect) in the other thread, that you would even make an argument like that. its one of those ignorant arguments that people make where the more chizzeled somebody is, the better they are. ken norton would do very well now then.

anyways, nowadays we train a lot to make bodies look more chizzeled even though it doesnt really matter. i can name great athletes that dont have that look at all but still excelled. the looks dont matter. its only the practicality of the training that matters. so you basing anything off of looks unless its blatantly obvious that they are way overweight, is a bad argument.
@powerpuncher

Now I don't care about the rest of the blather above but you just hold it right there! I want you to have me on record here right now that I do not place much credit on what you look like at all in regards to boxing, especially HW boxing!

In fact and you can quote me.. At HW there is no reason why having a little bit of fat is detrimental to your performance. In fact although fat is added weight with no strength benefit to carry around, muscle weight also slows one down. An equivalent amount of muscle weight on the arms might even slow you down more than the equal amount of weight on the tummy because of the way it's distributed. And more muscles mean faster metabolism which at peak performance may actually make a boxer gas faster than even his equal weight but more chubby opponent! Now I'm not implying that being a fat ass is desirable for boxing either but within reason at HW it is not such a bad thing, nor is it a sign of undertraining (unless you are James Toney or something akin).

The ONLY reason I made the former statement is because Bradley tried to say that Dempsey and his peers trained so hard they fined their way down so low and were more lean than modern fighters, which on average is just not true at all. In fact it is one of the differences immediately apparent by looking at the different eras.

Don't try to turn this around and make it look like I promoted this train of thought!

As for modern training methods being same as olden days ones... Do I really need to answer that any further. Everybody must know that this is just complete rubbish!

What if the old timers had steroids, what if they had training camps, what if they had modern diet and nutrition, what if they were bigger... They are just that, what ifs! I've never been concerned with these questions. Were they taller, heavier, more athletic, better trained, had better diets etc they would BE modern fighters they would not BE who they actually were.