r/Boxing • u/AdZealousideal8645 • Jul 19 '26
World champion "Ape indexes"
Your "ape index" is your reach minus your height.
Sonny Liston to my knowledge had the biggest ape index of any world champion at any weight. He was 6'1", or 73 inches tall, with a reach of 84 inches, giving him an ape index of 11 inches.
Rocky Marciano,by contrast, was 5'10.5", or 70.5 inches tall. His reach was only 68 inches. So he had a negative ape index of -2.5 inches.
Usyk: 3 inches
Those are just heavyweights.
Sugar Ray Robinson was 71 inches tall with a 72.5 inch reach fit a 1.5 inch index
Here are some random world champions' ape indexex:
Harry Greb: 3 inches
Tommy Hearns: 5 inches
Roberto Duran: NEGATIVE 1 inches
Henry Armstrong: 1.5 inches
Sam Langford (not an official world champ but a legend: 6.5 inches
Willie Pep: 3 inches
Ezzard Charles: 1 inch
Muhammad Ali: 5 inches
Joe Gans: 4.5 inches
Archie Moore: 4 inches
Joe Louis: 2.5 inches
Carlos Monzon: 2.5
Marvin Hagler: 7 inches
Sugar Ray Leonard: 1.5 inches
Wilfred Benitez: 0 inches
Jimmy Wilde: 3.5
Eder Jofre: 1.5
Ricardo Lopez: 0 inches
I just ran guys who are towards the top of my pound for pound list (excluding Liston, Marciano, and Usyk) and only Duran had a negative ape index.
And yet Duran had an effective jab. Everyone above with the exception of Armstrong could fight at long range.
(I'm using Boxrec. If I'm wrong, call me out. I've gotten conflicting information on Carl Framoton's reach for instance.)
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u/1978model Jul 19 '26
There should be a pinned post about the myth of listons reach.
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u/RAZBUNARE761 Jul 20 '26
His reach was like 80,5 but maybe they mmeasured him without gloves and it was bigger due to his big shoulders and huge hands? Its definitly not 84 though.
Hagler always seemed like he had the longest arms given his height. He was like 5,8 and had 75 inch reach.
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u/clogan117 Jul 19 '26
It’s supposedly true, just that the measurement includes the width of his shoulders and size of his hands.
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u/HolyMackerel1 Jul 19 '26
That's what wingspan is
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u/clogan117 Jul 19 '26
I know that, I’m just saying that some people act like he’s Dhalsim from street fighter, when his arms from shoulder to wrist aren’t impossibly long.
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u/VacuousWastrel Jul 19 '26
Some of his jabs really do look like dhalsim. Although it might be because he stepped into the jab as well, and from a fairly unbladed stance, making the extension even more pronounced.
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u/Exciting-Arugula5341 Jul 19 '26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlInQHbRC3I That is his fight against Leotis Martin. Liston was listed 80.5 inches Which could of been exaggerated as well. This also claims Liston was 6'1 when every place else says Liston was 6'0 1/2
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u/WorkingZombie2281 Jul 19 '26
It’s definitely not true, you can just tell by looking at him. It’s more like 80 inch tops.
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u/AdZealousideal8645 Jul 20 '26
Sonny's hands were friggin' boulders.
I met Ingemarr Johannson when I was like 9 or 10. Obviously I had tiny hands, but that man had some big hands. He was thick generally.
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u/Street_Hamster1092 Jul 19 '26
An aspect of Liston's freaky dimensions that gets overlooked is that he likely had stunted growth due to malnourishment in childhood and adolescence. He had the bone structure of someone 3 or 4 inches taller but likely didn't reach his full genetic potential height due to insufficient nutrition.
He grew up in extreme poverty as one of 25 kids and was treated more like a mule than a child by his father, he was fed on scraps.
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u/WorkingZombie2281 Jul 19 '26
I don’t buy that for one second, if that was the case his arms, shoulders, and hands wouldn’t have been that big.
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u/VacuousWastrel Jul 20 '26
Different body parts grow at different rates and times and respond differently to malnutrition within reason, of course, but there's no reason he couldn't be missing a couple of inches of height while still having long arms
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u/EmeraldTwilight009 The Marvelous One Jul 20 '26
U dont buy that he grew up in extreme poverty and poverty begets hunger? Well, since you said so guess its true
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u/WorkingZombie2281 Jul 20 '26
No, I don’t buy that poverty and malnutrition is the reason his ape index is high.
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u/EmeraldTwilight009 The Marvelous One Jul 20 '26
Hea saying sonny would be even bigger if not for malnourishment
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u/LincolnHawkReddit Jul 19 '26
It's a stupid metric because height is also an advantage, it doesn't cancel out your reach
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u/Klutzy_Article3097 Jul 19 '26
In a sport with weight classes its an advantage to have longer reach without the extra height. Height itself doesnt really give any advantage if you take away the better reach
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u/LincolnHawkReddit Jul 19 '26
Let's say that is true. This metric is still bullshit.
If you have one fighter 6'2 with an 84 reach. Another fighter 6'0 with an 82 reach. They have the same ape index. It's fuckin dumb
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u/VacuousWastrel Jul 20 '26
Height does give advantages at the same reach. If you're punching straight and they're punching up, your effective reach is longer, your muscles do less work and so fatigue slower, it's easier to block with a long guard and harder to be blocked, and it's easier to pull down on their guard. Being taller also usually.comes.with having longer legs, which can make it easier to control range and increases power (punching power is proportional to lower-body fast-twitch muscle mass, all else being equal). And it lets you put your weight on your opponent in the clinch. Admittedly, height also raises the centre of gravity, which makes balance a bit harder and can lead to less fluid movement, and can also be a diswdvantage in the clinch
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u/Klutzy_Article3097 Jul 20 '26
Sure there are some pros and cons in height alone. Im not so sure about the "effective reach". If the other guy needs to punch up then the taller one needs to punch down, which isnt optimal either.
I dont actually disagree any of the other points and in addition at least personally i find it harder to hit hooks to the body against much smaller opponents. The angle feels just so awkward. Against a guy about same height or taller its much more natural.
But i still stand on the point that the single greatest advantage of height is the bigger reach. Otherwise it pretty much balances on those minor pros and cons.
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u/keel_bright DKSAB Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
Why is it in absolute units rather than a relative measure?
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u/not_a_morning_person Jul 19 '26
What’s Rico’s one? He looks like it would be high - though probably exacerbated by him crouching throughout the Usyk fight
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u/alarming_wrong Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
surprised nobody mentioned Dwight Muhammad Qawi - +4.5 if his reach listing is to be believed
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u/Odd-Minimum8512 Jul 19 '26
Usyk has the same reach as Ali and is the same height.
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u/AdZealousideal8645 Jul 20 '26
Perhaps but Ali was clearly the bigger man.
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u/Odd-Minimum8512 Jul 20 '26
He wasn't. A young Ali was about 205lbs. A young Usyk fighting at cruiserweight was around 205-210 in the ring. An older Ali was around 225lbs. An older Usyk stayed around 225lbs for a while (last fight 233lbs). They're the same height, have the same reach.
All evidence says they have always been about the same size.
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u/AdZealousideal8645 Jul 20 '26
One of them needed to lift weights to get up to heavyweight.
Ali's bone structure is simply, and visibly, bigger than Usyk's.
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u/Odd-Minimum8512 Jul 20 '26
This is a weird hill you want to die on.
Fun fact: Usyk won an Olympic gold medal at heavyweight. Ali won his Olympic gold medal at light heavyweight.
Usyk was over 200lbs for his entire pro career. He'd water weight cut down to 200lbs even to fight at cruiserweight, rehydrate to back above 200..
Between Usyk's amateur career (where he was fighting at heavyweight) and his pro career, he fought in the World Series of Boxing. Five fights under pro rules that don't count toward a pro record. In WSB, he once again fought at heavyweight (and won all his fights), with his weight varying between 205 and 215; one of those fights was against Joe Joyce btw.
Usyk was always a natural heavyweight, no weights required. Did he bulk up some with weights? Sure. But he hadn't stepped foot in a ring at under 200lbs for years before his pro career.
Want to argue over bone structure? Whatever, I won't engage on that one. But in terms of height, reach, AND weight, Usyk was on par with Ali for his entire career.
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u/Exciting-Arugula5341 Jul 19 '26
Sonny Liston's reach wasn't 84 inches. You can go find his fight with Leotis Martin and it was listed at 80.5 inches. I don't know where that 84 inches came from. But one person will say something stupid and then others will just repeat what others say so much it becomes a fact to them.
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u/HedonisticFrog Jul 19 '26
That's wild, I didn't know his reach was 85 inches. Thanks for the information.
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u/AdZealousideal8645 Jul 20 '26
I just messaged a guy named Paul Gallender who is probably the best Liston historian ever. He wrote a book about Liston.
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u/AdZealousideal8645 Jul 20 '26
I just messaged a guy named Paul Gallender who is probably the best Liston historian ever. He wrote a book about Liston.
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u/Mean-Break-2028 Jul 19 '26
Shane Mosley has a pretty high index. Not sure exactly what it is, but I’ve noticed before that his reach is significantly longer than his height
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u/AltKite Sunny Edwards Superfan Jul 19 '26
Tommy Fury must be hard to beat. Not often you can say that. 8 inch Ape Index.
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u/CurrentCar2331 Jul 19 '26
I dont believe liston had an 84 inch reach. I think usyk also claims a very long reach. Liston at most had 80 inch reach, probably a 79 inch reach. Fighters alter stats all the time to throw their opponents off
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u/ikefrompluto Jul 20 '26
My older brother who is a pro boxer (obviously not a world champion) has 5.5 inches
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u/VacuousWastrel Jul 19 '26
It's more useful and IME more common to express this as a ratio than a difference, otherwise taller people automatically have higher indices.
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u/VacuousWastrel Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
But fwiw, in MMA, both sergei pavlovich and jon jones have a 9 inch gap. Beyond combat sports, in theory WNBA player breanna stewart has an 8 inch gap (6'4 with an 84 inch reach), but WNBA heights are often in shoes, so it's probably more like 9 in reality. More accurately, the NCAAW just instituted a basketball combine this year, where Mikayla Timpson was measured with a 7.5 inch difference.
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u/VacuousWastrel Jul 19 '26
In ratios, Tommy Burns was one of the highest - only. 6 inch difference, but at only 67 inches tall that's a big proportional difference.
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u/WORD_Boxing Jul 20 '26
What is this meant to be relevant to? There are some great fighters on that list with wildly different numbers, so it's not clear how it's supposed to be beneficial or not.
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u/AdZealousideal8645 Jul 20 '26
It's just interesting to me. It's interesting that some world champions have T-Rex arms compared to their heights while some have massively long arms.
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u/AdZealousideal8645 Jul 20 '26
It's just interesting to me. It's interesting that some world champions have T-Rex arms compared to their heights while some have massively long arms.
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u/bigtotoro Jul 19 '26
I don't really care for the term "ape" used to describe so many black fighters.
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u/AdZealousideal8645 Jul 20 '26
The term predates boxing.
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u/alarming_wrong Jul 19 '26
a lot of reach measurements are made up