Should Today's Boxers Put Down the Weights?

I was reading an article about the "Leamington Licker", Randolph Turpin the other day. His training methods were considered highly unusual in his heyday in the 40s and 50s because he was keen on lifting weights.

Turpin reached the absolute pinnacle of the sport by beating Sugar Ray Robinson, the greatest pound-for-pound boxer in history.

Robinson was the most notable of many of Turpin's opponents who remarked on his exceptional strength. So why then, assuming that his weight training had enhanced his strength, was lifting not the norm among boxers?

The top American trainers insisted that weights damaged a boxer's performance. Beefed-up muscles rob a fighter of his smooth movement and rhythm, they said.

Big muscles are metabolically demanding - they need more fuel - leading to a dip in stamina. 

Critics point to British heavyweights Frank Bruno and Anthony Joshua as examples of beautifully-sculpted fighters who have been toppled by less aesthetically-impressive opponents.

I recall one veteran journalist in Las Vegas comparing Bruno to a Greek statue at the poolside. His colleague dryly quipped that the statue was more mobile. Tyson Fury has been mocking AJ for years for being a "bodybuilder". AJ famously lost his titles to Andy Ruiz Jr, the most blubbery-looking man in the heavyweight division. Bruno was flattened by the rather portly Tim Witherspoon.

But some of the best trainers today clearly believe in the value of lifting weights. When we see video of Fabio Wardley, it nearly always shows him lifting, and never shows him in sparring sessions. Does that mean he doesn't do much sparring? Or does coach Ben Davison keep it secret, to prevent opponents gathering intel on his strengths and weaknesses?

I never cease to be amazed by the power that some skinny-looking boxers are able to generate. The above-mentioned Ray Robinson was one. He had limbs like pipe cleaners, but that didn't stop him producing some of the most devastating one-punch knockouts in boxing history. Just take a look at his KO of Gene Fullmer. 

We're talking about power that comes from a smooth, fluid motion, not from "loading up".

A fighter who's loose doesn't need to "wind up" his punches like a muscleman. The shots often look innocuous. Until they land.

And knockouts are all about timing. The traditionalists say that a musclebound fighter can't time his shots with the required precision.

Take a look at the Pride of Wales, Joe Calzaghe. He was a slender man who trained in a tin shack in the back end of nowhere, with hardly a dumbbell in sight. And yet, before his hands cracked, he was laying out everyone - even with 16 oz gloves in the amateurs. And his stamina and punch output were phenomenal.

As for Randoph Turpin, for a brief moment in 1951, he was the poster boy for muscled boxers. But his reign as champion lasted a mere 64 days. The skinny Robinson blasted him into submission in the return in New York.

I tend to think that the lean, low-tech champions of the 1950s would wipe the floor with today's crop.

Do you agree?