'300' not such a magic number in boxing

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The number "300" is magic if you're on the Pro Bowlers Tour. In boxing, that's not the case.

This may surprise some, but in a sport where hitting the other guy harder counts for something, bigger does not necessarily mean better. In fact, often it has been just the opposite.
This is an era of oversized athletes. In the NFL, it is commonplace for offensive linemen to scale well above 300, to the point where the sub-300 tackle or guard can just about throw his chances of making it out the window.

While there is no mistaking the fact that heavyweight fighters have gotten bigger as a whole and more agile for their size, the line between what is useful and what is burdensome in terms of pure size is still drawn somewhere. And all indications are that it is well south of the 300-pound mark.

Not that anomalies do not exist. Up until just recently, Nikolai Valuev, standing seven feet tall and tipping he scales at 320-plus pounds, was the WBA heavyweight champion. It can be argued that his sheer girth was a major factor in his success, and while he would hardly be classified as nimble on his feet, he was nonetheless far more agile than the typical ring giant.

Valuev is the heaviest fighter to compete for a heavyweight title — the only 300-pounder of which we know.

Lots of big, big guys have ascended to the point where they were at least fringe contenders. But how big were they, really?

Buster Mathis, the winner of the 1964 Olympic Trials (Joe Frazier replaced him on the U.S. team after an injury) weighed an even 300 for his pro debut against Bob Maynard in June of 1965. But he lost weight, reducing to the 260s and eventually as low as 220-1/2 for a bout with Amos Lincoln in September 1968.

Leroy Jones was a pretty talented fighter out of Denver; a former semi-pro football player who challenged Larry Holmes for the WBC heavyweight title in 1980. But Jones, who stood 6-foot-5, never weighed more than 275 pounds in his career.

James J. Beattie, a heavyweight of the '60s and '70s who was big enough (6-foot-8) to portray Jess Willard in the film "The Great White Hope," never even got to the 250-mark. Jimmy Abbott, a South African who scored a win over Kallie Knoetze and boxed to a draw with George Chaplin, got to 300 ever so briefly.

Even some of those in the "sideshow" category don't quite qualify for our list.

Wes Smith, an ineffective heavyweight with a career record of 4-34, weighed in for his November 1998 fight with George Linberger at an official 296 pounds, though with all due respect, he may have gone into the ring well over 300 because of his penchant for eating hot dogs at the concession stand, with robe and trunks on, before his bouts. Ed "Too Tall" Jones, the 6-foot-9 behemoth from the Dallas Cowboys who had six pro fights, was basically a 270-pounder at most.

Paul Anderson, the Olympic weightlifter, is considered by many to be the strongest man ever, and was said to have backlifted 6,270 pounds in his yard, in front of witnesses, on June 12, 1957. Anderson was 5-foot-9 and 360 pounds at one point in his weightlifting career, but when he decided he wanted to be a professional fighter, he got down to a svelte 290. It didn't matter though; he still wasn't in any kind of fighting shape as he quit from exhaustion in the third round of his pro debut in April 1960, despite having already floored opponent Attillo Tondo four times.

Well then, what about the guys who meet our "standard"?

One of the early 300-pounders who got more attention than most was Ewart Potgieter, a 7-foot-2, 330-pound mammoth from the Natal area of South Africa who inherited much of his size. Potgieter's grandfather was over seven feet tall, so he didn't even stand out in his own family. And he took his size, seen as a handicap by some, in good humor.

"If a car gets stuck in the mud or in the sand," he told a Ring Magazine reporter in the January 1957 issue, "I can lift it myself."

Most opponents were understandably intimidated by Potgieter, who held a weight advantage of at least a hundred pounds in many of his fights.

 

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His reputation was somewhat enhanced when in one of his early sparring sessions, he knocked the former South African black heavyweight champ Ezekiel Dhlamini completely out of the ring.

But although he had a pretty good chin, many newspaper accounts referred to him as a "novice" in terms of boxing skills. As a result, more adroit foes were going to give him trouble, no matter how much weight they were giving up.

One of those opponents was James J. Parker, who he met in 1955. Potgieter had mowed through nine straight opponents, the last couple of which were carefully-chosen by the legendary promoter Jack Solomons, who had brought him to England. But Parker had quite a bit of experience, having fought the likes of Bernie Reynolds, Nino Valdes, Earl Walls and Jimmy Slade (he went on to fight Archie Moore and George Chuvalo later in his career).

Parker was no small man himself, at 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds, but he and Potgieter engaged in a 10-round draw that was so displeasing to the fans that the South African, who had contested his two previous bouts in London, got virtually run out of the U.K., and into retirement for over a year.

He eventually resurfaced in America, and had a few bouts in Oregon, one of which was a decision loss to John Holman, a grizzled veteran who had previously scored wins over Ezzard Charles and Bob Satterfield. Potgieter's final career record was a respectable 11-2-1.

Some of the giants were little more than the product of a carefully-designed publicity campaign. Yet, they provided for some colorful copy.

The newspaper headline on May 13, 1930 declared "Carnera is Pygmy Beside French Giant." Fernand Contat was being primed for a Primo Carnera-like run through the United States, and if he had appeared in a professional ring he would have gone down in history as the tallest competitor ever. Standing 7-foot-8 and weighing 415 pounds, Contat was confirmed to have fought exhibitions in European circuses, and the 28-year-old was looking to make his move in America, on the heels of the Italian Carnera's emergence as a physical curiosity.

In fact, press reports had Contat calling out Carnera, who by comparison was downright diminutive, at 6-foot-5 1/2 and 260-270 pounds. Unlike Carnera, who at least demonstrated some basic skills and improved over time, Contat looked to be almost entirely the creation of press agents. They told stories of his auspicious consumption, including a daily routine consisting of a loaf of bread with a leg of lamb, heaving down cocktails two at a time in beer glasses.

At this particular time, sentiment in the press and among serious boxing fans, however, was that Carnera had been building a phony career; he had in fact been banned in two states and there was an especially ugly incident in Oakland where the corner man for opponent Leon Chevalier had thrown in the towel for no reason, arousing suspicion of a fix. As a result, Carnera had his purse withheld and was barred from competition by the California authorities. Public demand was not moving in the direction of a repeat, and Contat may have indeed required even more coddling than Primo did.

Then there was the case of Charlie Freeman, which was part truth and part myth. Freeman's story began as he issued a "challenge" to Ben Caunt, the bare-knuckle champion of England, in 1842. Freeman was billed by resourceful promoters of the day as the "American champion," standing 7-foot-6 and weighing 332 pounds, and regardless of whether that was a gross exaggeration, Caunt reportedly "refused" to fight him, adding to the buildup, then went on an exhibition tour of England with him, fueling historical speculation that Caunt had actually cooked up the gag in the first place.

Freeman did indeed have a "real" fight or two. In 1842 he was challenged by William Perry, a sub-200 pounder who would later go on to win the heavyweight championship of England. For the first fight, one news account had Freeman, who was really about 6-foot-9 or 6-foot-10, weighing in at 17 stone, four pounds, or 242 pounds, while Perry was 56 pounds lighter. The bout, held in Sawbridgeworth, went 70 rounds, then was, in effect, called on account of darkness. A couple of weeks later the two met again and this time the fight was ended in 39 rounds either because Perry was disqualified for going down without being hit, or had to retire due to an ear injury (there were conflicting reports on this).

Freeman never fought again, but he did perform for a time in the circus. His signature act was to ride two horses at the same time, while holding a grown man up over his head.

We certainly have room for a guy who straddled the 300-pound line, don't we? John Rankin had gained quite a bit of notoriety in his hometown of New Orleans as he worked as a doorman in the French Quarter. Standing 7-foot-4 and possessing a 90-inch reach, he didn't equivocate about wanting to exploit his size in the prize ring.

"I think I can make some fast money," he told local reporters when word first got out that he was going into training.

Although the nickname "Big John" showed little in the way of creativity, Rankin was certainly capable of some witticisms. "I met a guy in Las Vegas one time who was 8-foot-6 and I was talking to his necktie," he once said. Vince Arnona, who handled him, was cautious. "About six months of training will tell us if John has any potential," he explained.

Rankin turned pro in November of 1967, and in that fight he scored a four-round decision over Willie Lee, who came in at 197 1/4 pounds. Rankin was listed at either 299 or 300, depending on which report you believe. That was his only recorded fight. Any potential he may have had remained unexplored.

By the way, just because a fighter tips the scales past the 300 mark doesn't guarantee he'll be tall in stature as well. One genuine fireplug was Herbert "Heavy Duty" McIntosh, a police officer in McAlester, Okla., who was something of a local legend. McIntosh had an extensive amateur career, or so it was said, with an Oklahoma AAU title under his considerable belt, and a record of 40-4 in the simon-pure ranks, with all wins by knockout. McIntosh weighed all of 325 pounds yet stood only 5-foot-9, which would have made for some very strange visuals.

 

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Records of pro fights are sketchy in Oklahoma, which did not have a boxing commission when McIntosh was campaigning in the late 1970s, but it is almost certain that he had at least four pro bouts. One of them was a decision loss to Jimmy Cross, who saw action against a number of notable fighters, including Duane Bobick, Quick Tillis, Jody Ballard and Steffen Tangstad. McIntosh's opponents seemed to have something in common, in that they were accustomed to fighting as small heavyweights; indeed, a couple of them would have been cruiserweights had the division existed at the time.

In 1971 Jimmy Black (360 pounds) and Claude McBride (340) combined for what is considered the first 700-pound fight in ring history. But in the first half of the century, it wasn't often that two very big men got in the ring against each other.

Big Ben Moroz, a 6-foot-9 (some claim seven-foot) fighter out of Philadelphia in the forties who often fought a shade above 300, had an interesting trio of fights against another "hulk" of the time, 6-foot-8 Gil Stromquist, who, ranging between 250-260, actually looked relatively petite by comparison. Moroz knocked out Stromquist all three times; the last one, for which he weighed 302 pounds, was (according to the record database at Boxrec.com) the only win of the last five and a half years of his career.

Moroz had some natural punching power; indeed, 11 of his 21 career wins were knockouts within the first three rounds. Historians allege that he had a glass jaw, but he took a seven-round beating from former heavyweight title challenger Lou Nova in 1944 and never went down.

The best known oversized heavyweight of recent times — much better known to the public than the aforementioned Valuev — is unquestionably Eric "Butterbean" Esch (77-7-4, 58 KOs), the "king of the four-rounders."

Esch may not have possessed a lot of raw talent, but he did train with a degree of seriousness, at least for a while. He was one of the top live attractions in boxing, and eventually went a full 10 rounds with Larry Holmes, scoring an official knockdown in the process.

For one of his fights, Butterbean was listed at 280 pounds. That may have been a mistake, since he had been 330 just three weeks before and wasn't known to go in a southerly direction on the poundage chart. For all of his other bouts, he weighed at least 300, all the way up to 417 1/2.

In January 1998 he won something called the IBA super heavyweight title with a decision over Harry Funmaker, who weighed just under 298. In one of his encounters the 'Bean was actually outweighed by a wide margin, as he scaled 320 pounds to Bill Duncan's 340 (Duncan was suspended after the April 1997 fight for allegedly taking a dive).

Nowadays Butterbean devotes some of his time to the mixed martial arts circuit; in fact, he is slated for a fight against Tengiz Tedoradze this weekend. In Esch's last recorded hands-only bout, on March 9, he hit his highest level yet (417 1/2), and combined with the 313 1/2 pound Joe Siciliano for what may be the heaviest fight in history — 731 total pounds.

If that's the case, it broke an unofficial record of sorts that was set in September of 1993, when Carl "The Eclipse" Chancellor met up with Lynwood Jones at Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis, Miss. Chancellor, out of Texas, was a collegiate discus thrower who later became a schoolteacher, and after weighing 296 for one of his early fights, had gone through a string of three straight bouts where he topped 400 on his 7-foot-1 frame.

Jones was the chief sparring partner for Larry Holmes, who was in the main event that evening, and even though he would later hit the 300-mark five times, Lynwood tipped the scales at 274 pounds for the Chancellor fight. It was known that the Mississippi commission didn't have a scale big enough to handle Chancellor, so the search was on for a meat scale that could suffice. None was secured, though ironically, it was later discovered that, the entire time, there was one located in the kitchen next to the motel conference room in which the weigh-in was being held.

Without a true barometer to go by, the matchmaker (who in this case happens to be the author of this story) had him listed at 446 pounds, and that's the way he was announced later. Chancellor came out of his dressing room area, climbed up the stairs, and stepped right over the top rope, as the crowd went wild. The master of ceremonies got into the spirit of the festivities, as he introduced the fight as "Six rounds, gigantic heavyweights."

Unfortunately, the bout itself did not match the excitement of the intro. Chancellor couldn't fight much. He was unsure of himself much of the time, and Jones jumped on him in the fourth round, putting him away. Later Chancellor was offered an opportunity to compete in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, which back then was still in its "Wild Wild West" phase, but turned it down. He did stick around the boxing game long enough, however, to clash with 306-pound James Gaines in March of 1998 in a fight featuring a combined 730 pounds.

Who knows — one more hamburger for Chancellor (or Gaines) and they may have beaten the Butterbean-Siciliano record.

Oh, what might have been...