So which of these time-honoured boxing maxims will ring true on Friday night as our natural-born heavyweight Anthony Joshua defends his world titles against pumped up cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk?
‘You pays your money and you takes your choice,’ say the bookmakers, who have Joshua as the heavy favourite in the first fight to be held in the new Tottenham Hotspur football stadium.
Size has always been the fall-back position when calling these odds. All the more so as the ring has become increasingly the land of the giants. Yet skill and speed coupled with massive punching power has often upset that equation down the decades.