How many players would not be Heavyweights?

A fighter whose weight is over 200 lb may not fight as anything but a heavyweight.

It just really caught my attention that most rugby players, in the mordern era would all be Heavyweight boxers.

How many nowadays are over 14 st 4 ib?

Even Gilroy would is considered a bit of a lightweight winger these days is 14st 9ib and hence a heavy weight boxer (Zebo 14st 11ib), Paddy Wallace at 12st 9lb is a Cruiserweight.

Even Shane Williams would fight at Cruiserweight.
Peter stringer a Middleweight.

I think we can maybe say Rugby player are getting big, of the heavyweight in boxing needs to increase, as we get bigger?

Greig Laidlaw - no heavyweight

They increase the boxing weights over time. When Cruiserweight was introduced (1980?) it was at 190lb. Until then you went from Light Heavy (max 175lbs) to Heavy. Since the introduction th emax weight of cruiserweight has increased to 200lbs.

Equally the bottom weight used to be lightweight - but many smaller ones have been added.

However the original point is valid - rugby players are getting bigger.

I think maybe ...well, men were thinner, leaner machines 'back in the day' when they worked in mines and factories and farms, and did heavy duty work and hours for less rations than a family can afford now. So heavyweight boxers really did look bulkier than their normal cousins back then

So, I'm laughing here thinking I could now be classed as a heavyweight boxer. I just find that funny for some reason. I might be a heavyweight in terms of the boney men who lived and worked in the 40s, 50s and even 60s.... but I've seen heavier children and women than me walking around the streets today. No not fat...just proportioned bone and musclewise to come out 'heavy' on a weighing scales. Heavyweight women taking on Frasier and Cassius??? Kinda puts the idea of 'heavyness' into perspective.

Players today are heavy, even in terms of rugby players of yesteryear; but the bulk is designed rather than natural...they eat and train scientifically to gain it and keep it. I wouldn't think it's natural evolution though or bigger men being chosen to play at the top level, moreso I'd simply suspect it's professional practices in operation.

What happened to that tiny French winger from the last couple of 6N's? He was what about 11 stone?

I heard he was eaten by one of his team mates during a half time break. Correct me if I got that wrong but I think it was on ESPN.

yappysnap wrote:What happened to that tiny French winger from the last couple of 6N's? He was what about 11 stone?

Marc Andreau? He seems to have fallen into anonymity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Andreu

I wouldn't say he's fallen into anonymity he was a right pain in the arse for Ulster in the HC groups this season. He might not be in the French squad but I don't necessarily think thats an indictment on him given that the likes of Rougerie, Malzieu and Heymans haven't been involved either.

Fair enough Artful, I didn't catch the Ulster Castres games.

Good strike rate for France though, surprised we haven't seen a little more of him.

Yeh, he'd be in my French squad any day and was exactly the sort of player they needed as he can play full back and wing - would have meant that Saint-Andre didn't have to play most of his backline out of position. I think Saint-Andre is a bit of a muppet all round and not just because of leaving Andreu out, some of the other players he left out and the way he has shaped his backline is silly.

Is Saint-Andre a muppet or is the entire French Union a bunch of fruitcakes who continuously hire nutty professors to oversee mentally unstable players in an habitually erratic and infuriatingly puzzling French team?

If the mistake keeps happening (and it seems to) then you gotta stretch your criticisms to the coach selectors themselves.

Plus, I'd say there is so much in fighting between powerful club owners/coaches and the competing interests of the International team that I'd be surprised if any coach really had a full deck to play with in realistic terms. Backroom plotting, threats and counter attacks are I'd suspect the norm in communications between French coach and players/club coaches/owners

Just like the England footie team

Interesting thought, like you say most would be, however which ones would be good? To be honest you need to be about 6ft 5 and 17 stone to be a good heavyweight these days, considering haye was undersized at 6ft 3 and 15 stone. Lawes could be good, he's super athletic, agressive and has stupidly long arms. Kris chesney could have been good as also super athletic and one of the scariest looking mo fos about! Simon Shaw vs nicolai valuez would have been a good fight too. P.s Danny grewcock is boxing Justin Harrison soon for flats benefit dinner..would love to see that fight!!

Thomas Castaignède was 5'9" and barely 13 stone soaking wet, but it didn't stop him tearing it up out there.

How Gio Aplon manages in the Super 15, I'll never know. Officially he's 5'9" and 78 kg (12 st 4 lb) but he seems much smaller. He's scored some stunners but I also saw one of the du Plessis literally bench press him out of a ruck.

Marc Andreau at 5' 5" still makes it as a middleweight/super middleweight.

"Thomas Castaignède was 5'9" and barely 13 stone soaking wet, but it didn't stop him tearing it up out there" thats still super middleweight, hardly small, same weight joe calzaghe fought at,

Gio Aplon would make light heavy weight

To be honest I've always though that rugby players stats aways were on the high side, an inch or two taller and 1/2 a stone heavier than most really are, or there official weight is taken just as they are leaving an all you can eat buffet, and wearing steel toecapped boots.

Looking at the Scarlets,

Aled Davies 5'9" 86kg
Dale Ford 5'10" 85kg
Rhys Jones 5'10" 88kg
Dan Newton 5'8" 86kg
Kris Phillips 5'8" 86kg
Jordan Williams 5'8" 81kg
Lee Williams 5'8 80kg
Liam Williams 6'2" 86kg (Really shocked!)
Rhodri Williams 5'9 81kg

Kingshu - boxers train to be without an ounce of fat, of course, so it's all relative.

The worst mismatch I saw recently was when Big Mike Cusack from Glasgow (5'10", 20st 7lbs) tackled Wayne Evans of the Dragons (5'10", 13st 5lbs). Couldn't watch the replay.

I was thinking that myself George but Sonny bill williams doesn't change weight,

However looking into it Quade S. Cooper, is down as 14 st 8 lb which would make him a heavyweight, but hes going to box at Cruiserweight (up to 14 stone 4 pounds) which means losing 4lbs.

Quade Cooper is maybe the best example to look at as he's an average size back, wouldn't think of him as a big or small back. Yet when fighting he's still a big boxer, its not like they cut down to super middleweight, as maybe I'd expect, maybe if he was a full time boxer he would cut to light heavyweight?

It strikes me that what was once middleweight division is now dwarf category? I'm don't really follow boxing...might have watched it more in the ....em last century ...... but I seem to recall that middleweights weren't 'small' men in those days.

Or maybe that was all just camera tricks. If Quade Cooper would now be considered a Heavyweight, surely that means that someone like Danny DeVito would be classed a middleweight?

SecretFly wrote:It strikes me that what was once middleweight division is now dwarf category? I'm don't really follow boxing...might have watched it more in the ....em last century ...... but I seem to recall that middleweights weren't 'small' men in those days.

Or maybe that was all just camera tricks. If Quade Cooper would now be considered a Heavyweight, surely that means that someone like Danny DeVito would be classed a middleweight?

Pretty sure he would be super heavyweight, after all if goes on weight and not height, and poor old Danny love to eat by the looks of it.

Kingshu wrote:I was thinking that myself George but Sonny bill williams doesn't change weight,

However looking into it Quade S. Cooper, is down as 14 st 8 lb which would make him a heavyweight, but hes going to box at Cruiserweight (up to 14 stone 4 pounds) which means losing 4lbs.

Quade Cooper is maybe the best example to look at as he's an average size back, wouldn't think of him as a big or small back. Yet when fighting he's still a big boxer, its not like they cut down to super middleweight, as maybe I'd expect, maybe if he was a full time boxer he would cut to light heavyweight?

I guess the thing with boxing is to get into the weight catagory you just need to be down to weight for the weigh ins, so you can realistically crash diet in order to get into the weight class and then put the few pound back on in time to fight. Most boxers, from my limited knowledge, tend to be just inside the upper limit of the weight class as opposed to being just above the lower limit.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

SecretFly wrote:It strikes me that what was once middleweight division is now dwarf category? I'm don't really follow boxing...might have watched it more in the ....em last century ...... but I seem to recall that middleweights weren't 'small' men in those days.

Or maybe that was all just camera tricks. If Quade Cooper would now be considered a Heavyweight, surely that means that someone like Danny DeVito would be classed a middleweight?

Pretty sure he would be super heavyweight, after all if goes on weight and not height, and poor old Danny love to eat by the looks of it.

That's kinda my point Scarlet, put in a humourous way. Like I said above, I've seen superheavyweight women (not fat - bone structure, height and presence) walking around streets in modern cities and towns. Would we throw them into the ring? Maybe the sport of boxing needs a lot of reclassification on how they select people to step into the ring with each other.

If Danny would be a heavyweight (and in truth you're right, he just well might be) he'd still be at a disadvantage to a taller man of the same weight (less reach and all that). So weights on their own don't suggest 'equality'.

Perhaps there should be some system that equates weight added to height added to bone mass. That way you'd be better able to judge just who genuinely is best in each category.

Fly - using a BMI sort of thing to sort them out? But that would be really firghtening as they would have to cut the round time of the heavyweight class as they would be puffing and panting after a walking to the middle of the ring.

em...I was thinking more clinical bone mass calculations...because it's bone mass that can often give the weight to some people when others get their weight moreso on muscle mass (it's heavy). And like I say then you have heights to think about too.

Just saying the resaons two men walk into the ring together is because they are both within a certain weight class. But the kind of weight they possess and the height its attached to can sometimes be very different indeed. You can have strong mismatches in the same weight division.

I don't think secretfly we will ever have to go into that or we'd end up with two twins fighting.

The weight is just a gerenal way of classing two different people, but it gives enough leaway for a lot of sizes and builds, without one being outclassed, a taller thinner figher may have the reach whereas a smaller muscler fighter can make up for the reach disadvantage with an inside boxing style and more power.

Kingshu wrote:I don't think secretfly we will ever have to go into that or we'd end up with two twins fighting.

The weight is just a gerenal way of classing two different people, but it gives enough leaway for a lot of sizes and builds, without one being outclassed, a taller thinner figher may have the reach whereas a smaller muscler fighter can make up for the reach disadvantage with an inside boxing style and more power.

I get you, Kingshu...and the moral of David and Goliath is a true one.... and the moral of Tyson is another true one. Of course height doesn't give an advantage unless you have the meat to make it tell...but I still say a little tightening up of classification is needed if Quade Cooper could fight heavyweight with some of the killers that category probably holds....