name fighters who have put on over 30lbs during their career

[sonnyboyx2]

Lots of talk in the boxing world that Pacquiao has taken steroids to put weight on as he moved up in weight-classes, yet throughout boxing history there has been lots of fighters who put on more weight than the 35lbs Manny Pacquiao has put on... see how many we can name:

Sam Langford -- 60lbs
George Foreman -- 70lbs
James Toney ----- 75lbs
Roy Jones ------ 45lbs
Jimmy Ellis ---- 40lbs
Floyd Patterson --- 40lbs
David Tua ------ 45lbs
Thomas Hearns --- 40lbs
Lennox Lewis ---- 35lbs
Michael Moorer --- 40lbs

[bklynboy]

Lots of talk in the boxing world that Pacquiao has taken steroids to put weight on as he moved up in weight-classes, yet throughout boxing history there has been lots of fighters who put on more weight than the 35lbs Manny Pacquiao has put on... see how many we can name:

Sam Langford -- 60lbs
George Foreman -- 70lbs
James Toney ----- 75lbs
Roy Jones ------ 45lbs
Jimmy Ellis ---- 40lbs
Floyd Patterson --- 40lbs
David Tua ------ 45lbs
Thomas Hearns --- 40lbs
Lennox Lewis ---- 35lbs
Michael Moorer --- 40lbs

Jim Braddock started as a middleweight and -- according to boxrec -- weighed 197 vs Joe Louis and 199.5 in his next and last fight against Tommy Farr.

[TheGreatA]

Chris Byrd fought at 141 in the amateurs. Highest weight 222 lbs at HW.

[1SILVA]

Lots of talk in the boxing world that Pacquiao has taken steroids to put weight on as he moved up in weight-classes, yet throughout boxing history there has been lots of fighters who put on more weight than the 35lbs Manny Pacquiao has put on... see how many we can name:

Sam Langford -- 60lbs
George Foreman -- 70lbs
James Toney ----- 75lbs
Roy Jones ------ 45lbs
Jimmy Ellis ---- 40lbs
Floyd Patterson --- 40lbs
David Tua ------ 45lbs
Thomas Hearns --- 40lbs
Lennox Lewis ---- 35lbs
Michael Moorer --- 40lbs

Add Evander Holyfield, Roberto Duran, Vinny Pazienza, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, and Dwight Qawi to that list

[oldgringo]

Georges Carpentier
Guillermo Jones
Jorge Castro

[roxy]

Duran used to gain 30-40 pounds between fights all the time

[Heru]

Not accusing Pacquiao of anything, but which one of those fighters has been able to still be as ripped as Pacquiao at his max. weight.

RJJ is the only one that has remained defined from those mentioned and there's a cloud of speculation surrounding him. And Holyfield too.

[Marcov]

Duran used to gain 30-40 pounds between fights all the time

Sometimes it affected his performance too, Duran and Archie Moore were two of the few that did it through their career and still had sucess in the ring.

[TheGreatA]

Young Stribling began his career as a featherweight and ended up fight as a heavyweight at 195 pounds.

Alabama Kid weighed 112 lbs early on and later 185 lbs.

Willie Pastrano went from 122 lbs to 191.

[BennyST]

Young Stribling began his career as a featherweight and ended up fight as a heavyweight at 195 pounds.

Alabama Kid weighed 112 lbs early on and later 185 lbs.

Willie Pastrano went from 122 lbs to 191.

There have been quite a lot, but few who have been still at a natural weight. The difference between most of these guys and Pac is that he is still at a natural weight for him. JWW and even WW are fine. He is as big as Cotto, though Cotto was on the small side.

He is a normal sized JWW though and at all the lower weights he was ever at he was literally like Paul Williams. Go watch some of his early fights like against Sasakul, Sanchez etc and he is like a monster next to them. He overshadows them by amazing amounts which is why he is still able to be the same size as today's JWW's.

The other big thing is that he moved up well before he was thirty years old and has only just passed thirty in recent years.

Other guys who moved up large amount of weight like Duran who moved up ten modern divisions and about 60 pounds was that he had found his natural weight by the time he hit his early twenties at 135 and stayed there until about thirty, then by the time he started moving up it was mainly because he didn't really have enough motivation to train any more, didn't give a **** and only fought on because of money and not knowing what else to do. He was also very small already by the time he got to WW, as he was on the small side at 135 already, when he was towered over by guys like Leonard etc who would have a good four or so inches in height and six to eight in reach.

Pac has still been the same size physically as nearly all his opponents apart from Oscar who was dead anyway. This is the biggest reason he is still so successful, apart from his obvious talents. Well, that and the style of guys he has been fighting recently.

It will be interesting to see Pac is his late thirties against guys much bigger and younger. I doubt he will stay around long enough though.

Apart from him though there have been a lot of fighters that have moved up as much or more and still been successful. I think most of them didn't have the luxury of fighting guys the same size though. Obviously, today the weigh ins help more than anything. They have gotten further and further between weigh in time and fight time, which allows today's fighter to shrink down abnormal amounts and then rehydrate hugely. Guys that used too fight thirty more years ago didn't have that luxury and had to fight closer to their real weight which meant they struggled to move up like that as you would be facing genuinely bigger guys if you weren't able to cut and rehydrate big.

Weight is a funny thing today and boxing is becoming more and more about weight and yet, in all reality it is less of an issue because the way things are run make it that much easier to move between divisions without much problem. If you are reasonably tall, you cut down with a good nutritionist and get to a your minimum weight, and then over your career you can up and up until you are finally around your natural weight usually at about thirty years old now.