quick pulled out the encyclopedia on me
I think bengals and siberians are at a stand off in weight too, atleast according to the older records siberians could hit 850 lbs on several cases, the bengal too, as shown in the bonus round thread had its records:
Interestingly though, this is the 800+ pound tiger:
To me that looks more like a 400-500 lb tiger than a 800 lb'er...some 300 lb tigers can be just as long and there isnt much of bulk, atleast I would invision some giant, but you have what looks like an ordinary looking tiger.
But the same source people attribute that the Siberian is slightly taller. Which is interesting since the bonus round thread showed surat india had many 12 foot long tigers, surat is the same district that a wild indian lion killed a tiger in a fair one on one fight in the wilderness...hence I dont see the small superficial size advantage alleged by some others meaning anything. But the siberian tiger named Jaipur holds the record for tigers:
But this is by over feeding, not natural, a tiger this size would be highly immobile. But regardless as noted, tigers and lions both average in at about 420 lbs...500 lb tigers are rare, 600 lb tigers are extreme and 700+ lb tigers are once in a life time. Both bengal and siberian can hit 700+ lbs, but its in general the siberian is bigger since some bengals can be as small as 90 kg, roughly the size of a large leopard, hence the bengal on average is smaller than the siberian. But those are abnormal. And like I said, even a tiger at 1,000 pounds, has a skinny neck roughly the same size of the persons waist, a lions neck is 2 - 3 x the size of a persons waist or body because of the mane, you always hear the saying the lions mane intimidates the hyena, the hyena dont run even from 20 lionesses or 10 young sub adult males, but they do from a single male with a big mane...
This actually makes sense why the dhole kill tigers, if a predator foe looks at a charging tiger or lion, they dont see the whole body, they just see the face/neck area, and the tigers neck is skinny in proportion to this already lithe body,but the lions mane is 2 feet long, 4 feet across if you factor in each side, so when a lion is charging hyena, it seems as if a animal bigger than a 2,000 lb brown bear is rushing at them, hence they usually run.
But again, a tiger larger than 700 lbs will have his disadvantages in a fight with a lion:
So its more upon the fighting skill of these animals than the size.