Cruiserweight Golden Era fighters at HW prove that talking about the need for SHW or Bridgerweight categories is nonsens

[Ambling Alp II]

For the last time, what are the results when a big heavyweight fights a small heavyweight in title fights? This is what I have asking you over and over.

[Bard of Boxrec]

[Enlightened-One]

For the last time, what are the results when a big heavyweight fights a small heavyweight in title fights? This is what I have asking you over and over.

So you’re admitting to lying?

Hence the reason why you can’t backup your own derogatory accusation.

[Enlightened-One]

From memory, there’s been 24 world title bouts from 264 of them, where the victor weighed less than 225lbs and the loser had a 20lbs+ weight advantage.

That equates to around 9% of all the bouts.

[The Gratest]

Alp's taken him to school on this one

[Enlightened-One]

Alp's taken him to school on this one

How?

He lied and won’t back it up.

All he’s done is prove he’s a liar!

[Enlightened-One]

For the last time, what are the results when a big heavyweight fights a small heavyweight in title fights? This is what I have asking you over and over.

I’ve directly answered every single question you’ve asked me in this thread, but I had to draw the line when you started blatantly lying about me!

You bizarrely accused me of cherry-picking stats and repeatedly “ducking obvious questions”, but you couldn’t provide any examples.

I only asked you one question, which I repeated three times that you’re far too scared to answer…

Which question have YOU actually asked me that I haven’t responded to?

Until you answer that one rather simple question, I won’t pay attention to anything you say.

[The Gratest]

Alp's taken him to school on this one

How?

He lied and won’t back it up.

All he’s done is prove he’s a liar!

If you don't realise then no point in explaining.

[H8Usernames]

At Hw we have 1066 rated fighters currently on boxrec.
Cw 901
Lhw 930

The most populous weight class is;
Lightweight with 1715 fighters followed by Jr welterweight with 1698 fighters.

The least populous weight class is:
Minimumweight with 159 fighters followed by light flyweight with 280 fighters.

The bridgerweight concept has some merits but is largely a big failure. Even Tyson Fury could probably make the 224 pound limit so what on earth is the point? LL could have made it, V Klit, W Klit 224 is far too high to be some weight class.

There are two things that need to be kept in mind with weight classes. A. You don't want weight classes with only 160 fighters in them and B. A 190 or 200 pound man should have the right as an athlete participating in a sport to fight in a similarly comfortable weightclass as someone fighting at lightweight, bw etc.

With close to 3.000 fighters campaigning between Lhw and Hw today if we were to add two weight classes then there would be around 600 fighters per division which considering the minimum weight participants is a completely acceptable number.

The 190 weight class was a good one suitable for large lhw's moving up. The 200 weightclass is a huge increment from 190 considering the increments in many lighter weightclasses. And lastly we should have a real bridgerweight at 210 pounds.

So Lhw 174
CW 190
SCW 200
BrW 210

I know what some will say, damaging the sport blah blah blah...... minimumweight doesn't damage the sport. 1 million titles per weight class isn't either and neither would making the sport a more fair sportlike type of thing by adding these weight classes.

As for the freaks of nature. It is my position that Tyson Fury is not a HW champion, he is simply too big to serve that role. Someone with such a huge size advantage can never really be the HW champ and nobody at HW has any obligation to fight him, especially those whose height is only 6"3 or lower.

[jezzamundo]

At Hw we have 1066 rated fighters currently on boxrec.
Cw 901
Lhw 930

The most populous weight class is;
Lightweight with 1715 fighters followed by Jr welterweight with 1698 fighters.

The least populous weight class is:
Minimumweight with 159 fighters followed by light flyweight with 280 fighters.

The bridgerweight concept has some merits but is largely a big failure. Even Tyson Fury could probably make the 224 pound limit so what on earth is the point? LL could have made it, V Klit, W Klit 224 is far too high to be some weight class.

There are two things that need to be kept in mind with weight classes. A. You don't want weight classes with only 160 fighters in them and B. A 190 or 200 pound man should have the right as an athlete participating in a sport to fight in a similarly comfortable weightclass as someone fighting at lightweight, bw etc.

With close to 3.000 fighters campaigning between Lhw and Hw today if we were to add two weight classes then there would be around 600 fighters per division which considering the minimum weight participants is a completely acceptable number.

The 190 weight class was a good one suitable for large lhw's moving up. The 200 weightclass is a huge increment from 190 considering the increments in many lighter weightclasses. And lastly we should have a real bridgerweight at 210 pounds.

So Lhw 174
CW 190
SCW 200
BrW 210

I know what some will say, damaging the sport blah blah blah...... minimumweight doesn't damage the sport. 1 million titles per weight class isn't either and neither would making the sport a more fair sportlike type of thing by adding these weight classes.

As for the freaks of nature. It is my position that Tyson Fury is not a HW champion, he is simply too big to serve that role. Someone with such a huge size advantage can never really be the HW champ and nobody at HW has any obligation to fight him, especially those whose height is only 6"3 or lower.

Good point regarding the 225lb limit. Plenty of super heavyweights of the past could make that limit - Lewis and Bowe certainly could early in their careers.

You lose me after that. I agree that the jump from 175lb to 200lb is too big. I remember late in his career, Danny Green said he couldn't make 175lb anymore, but had a big size disadvantage against cruiserweights who cut to make 200lb. If anything, I think the obvious decision is this:

LHW - 175lb
CW - 190lb
BW - 210lb

No need for a 200lb in between - at that point you're just thinning out the talent pool. 210lb is generous for Bridgerweight.

Silly point regarding Tyson Fury. The guy weighed in the 240s when he wasn't overweight and he isn't really 6'9". He has also been decked by:

- 6'3" 232lb Neven Pajkic
- 6'3 210lb former cruiserwight Steve Cunningham
- 6'7" 212lb Deontay Wilder

[H8Usernames]

At Hw we have 1066 rated fighters currently on boxrec.
Cw 901
Lhw 930

The most populous weight class is;
Lightweight with 1715 fighters followed by Jr welterweight with 1698 fighters.

The least populous weight class is:
Minimumweight with 159 fighters followed by light flyweight with 280 fighters.

The bridgerweight concept has some merits but is largely a big failure. Even Tyson Fury could probably make the 224 pound limit so what on earth is the point? LL could have made it, V Klit, W Klit 224 is far too high to be some weight class.

There are two things that need to be kept in mind with weight classes. A. You don't want weight classes with only 160 fighters in them and B. A 190 or 200 pound man should have the right as an athlete participating in a sport to fight in a similarly comfortable weightclass as someone fighting at lightweight, bw etc.

With close to 3.000 fighters campaigning between Lhw and Hw today if we were to add two weight classes then there would be around 600 fighters per division which considering the minimum weight participants is a completely acceptable number.

The 190 weight class was a good one suitable for large lhw's moving up. The 200 weightclass is a huge increment from 190 considering the increments in many lighter weightclasses. And lastly we should have a real bridgerweight at 210 pounds.

So Lhw 174
CW 190
SCW 200
BrW 210

I know what some will say, damaging the sport blah blah blah...... minimumweight doesn't damage the sport. 1 million titles per weight class isn't either and neither would making the sport a more fair sportlike type of thing by adding these weight classes.

As for the freaks of nature. It is my position that Tyson Fury is not a HW champion, he is simply too big to serve that role. Someone with such a huge size advantage can never really be the HW champ and nobody at HW has any obligation to fight him, especially those whose height is only 6"3 or lower.

Good point regarding the 225lb limit. Plenty of super heavyweights of the past could make that limit - Lewis and Bowe certainly could early in their careers.

You lose me after that. I agree that the jump from 175lb to 200lb is too big. I remember late in his career, Danny Green said he couldn't make 175lb anymore, but had a big size disadvantage against cruiserweights who cut to make 200lb. If anything, I think the obvious decision is this:

LHW - 175lb
CW - 190lb
BW - 210lb

No need for a 200lb in between - at that point you're just thinning out the talent pool. 210lb is generous for Bridgerweight.

Silly point regarding Tyson Fury. The guy weighed in the 240s when he wasn't overweight and he isn't really 6'9". He has also been decked by:

- 6'3" 232lb Neven Pajkic
- 6'3 210lb former cruiserwight Steve Cunningham
- 6'7" 212lb Deontay Wilder

Tyson Fury was toying with Steve and got caught showboating. Same with Wilder, showboating the whole fight.

No 200lb weight class? What about a talented natural 200 pound guy that doesn't have the skill to dominate at 210? He shouldn't recieve the recognition for his talent that smaller guys recieve at much lower weight increments? Adding these weight classes really wouldn't hurt anyone and certainly not the sport of boxing.

[jezzamundo]

There are too many weight classes lower down too. In an ideal world:

105lb
112lb
118lb
126lb
135lb
147lb
160lb
175lb
190lb
210lb
Heavyweight

[Finkel]

I'm surprised this discussion slipped by me:

The below animated chart shows how the Top 10 Heavyweights (Ring Magazine) have physically become larger over the decades.

(NOTE: Viewable on PC and iPad. Can be viewed on smartphone by downloading the GIF ~ sorry)

The bigger the circle, the higher in the top 10 rankings of that decade.
Gold Circle = Top fighter of the decade
Silver Circle = 2nd
Bronze Circle = 3rd
Bold Text and/or Purple Circle = That fight held the top spot in the Ring rankings for at least 1 year in a decade.
The Centre of the circle represents the fighters height and weight.



Thank you to the Youtuber: Rummy's Corner (Top 10 Heavyweights by Decade). I don't know if you saw my message, but your rankings were a huge boon as a start point to help me create this gif.

I used boxrec to source weights and heights. I am sure there will be some debate over what was each fighters optimal weight, but I tried to pick a weight (often average) that they fought at during their peak Ring position in each decade.

Finally I used a combination of community rankings from boxrec, boxingforum24 and ring magazine to rank current day (2021)

Enjoy

p.s. I welcome feedback. Spelling errors, contentious weights or heights, etc.

p.p.s. I wasn't sure which forum this was most appropriate for, so I'll leave it to the moderators to delete as they see fit

[Finkel]

I think once Fury retires, we will see a return to smaller and faster heavyweights. Don't get me wrong there will always be big men in the heavyweight division, but there are not that many enormous fighters who are very skilled.

The Klitschko brothers, Lennox Lewis, Tyson Fury, and to a lesser extent Wilder and Joshua, are exceptions to the rule rather than the rule. Big men who can box well or who have great athleticism are few and far between in boxing.

I think what we are finding is the pool of super heavies has gotten bigger and bigger as people have generally gotten bigger and bigger. So I don't expect the trend to go backwards unless there is some global crisis that causes the human populations to start decreasing in size.

Though I'm personally of the opinion that a significant skill gap can overcome the size gap. I personally was favouring Usyk once I saw he came in around 220lb in the recent match-up with Joshua. I don't think I would favour him over Fury though. Also though he defeated Joyce in the WSB, I suspect he might have some issues with the constant pressure Joyce comes with now.

[Finkel]

Again, people keep bringing up big guys winning the title.
How about when a big a guy actually fights a smaller guy? In real life. Not "Mythical Fights" where the bigger guy almost always wins.
Almost all of the fights were between two big guys. so of course a big guy is going to be the champions.

I'm saying that if the smaller guy is better, he will beat the bigger guy. If not, he won't.

We have to get away from typical lines like "Fighter A has a 20 pound weight advantage"

No, he doesn't have a weigh advantage. The weight itself doesn't do anything.
People act like 240 against 220 is the same as 140 vs 120. It's not. Never has been.

There were big heavyweights 100 years ago. The biggest guy has never been the best at any time. Not now. Not 10 years ago. Not 20. Not 100. Never. Ever.

I would have to respectfully disagree. The above graph shows the trend within the top 10 heavyweight fighters of the last 100 years. Whilst the biggest available guy might not have been the best, I think as the pool of larger guys has expanded, more and more skillful big men appeared supplanting the skillful little men.

Though as I said to Henry above, I think if the skill gap is big enough it can overcome the size gap. But in the case of Usyk, he is a generational talent.

[Finkel]

If you want to get granular:

Aggregate rounds won for smaller guys vs their bigger challenger counterparts

Then youd have a meaningful statistical analysis of whether bigger hw are more successful than smaller

Not sure that would do much, for example you could have a smaller guy who wins 11 of 12 rounds, but keeps being knocked out in the 12th. By your metric he would have been extremely successful in the heavyweight division...

[Finkel]

Interesting thing about Wilder, is he just weighed in at a career heaviest of 238lbs to try and deal with 270+lb Tyson Fury.
Whilst Wilder has been capable of making the Bridgerweight limit, many have also argued that Wilder has taken the path of least resistance for the majority of his career when he has been operating at lower than average weights for a heavyweight.

Personally, I think a lot of people are getting ahead of themselves following the victory of a generational talent like Usyk who weighed 220lbs. An ATG cruiserweight (arguably the GOAT at that weight class) is not the norm

[Finkel]

The existence of a bridgerweight division does not prevent matchups like Usyk vs. Joshua from happening. Bridgerweight is recognized by the WBC. Even if it was recognized by the other sanctioning bodies and BoxRec and Ring magazine, these matchups would still happen. The reason is to be heavyweight champion will always be the goal of the shorter/lighter boxers who are great and not just good. Holyfield would still move up to heavyweight if bridgerweight existed in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

[jezzamundo]

At Hw we have 1066 rated fighters currently on boxrec.
Cw 901
Lhw 930

The most populous weight class is;
Lightweight with 1715 fighters followed by Jr welterweight with 1698 fighters.

The least populous weight class is:
Minimumweight with 159 fighters followed by light flyweight with 280 fighters.

The bridgerweight concept has some merits but is largely a big failure. Even Tyson Fury could probably make the 224 pound limit so what on earth is the point? LL could have made it, V Klit, W Klit 224 is far too high to be some weight class.

There are two things that need to be kept in mind with weight classes. A. You don't want weight classes with only 160 fighters in them and B. A 190 or 200 pound man should have the right as an athlete participating in a sport to fight in a similarly comfortable weightclass as someone fighting at lightweight, bw etc.

With close to 3.000 fighters campaigning between Lhw and Hw today if we were to add two weight classes then there would be around 600 fighters per division which considering the minimum weight participants is a completely acceptable number.

The 190 weight class was a good one suitable for large lhw's moving up. The 200 weightclass is a huge increment from 190 considering the increments in many lighter weightclasses. And lastly we should have a real bridgerweight at 210 pounds.

So Lhw 174
CW 190
SCW 200
BrW 210

I know what some will say, damaging the sport blah blah blah...... minimumweight doesn't damage the sport. 1 million titles per weight class isn't either and neither would making the sport a more fair sportlike type of thing by adding these weight classes.

As for the freaks of nature. It is my position that Tyson Fury is not a HW champion, he is simply too big to serve that role. Someone with such a huge size advantage can never really be the HW champ and nobody at HW has any obligation to fight him, especially those whose height is only 6"3 or lower.

Good point regarding the 225lb limit. Plenty of super heavyweights of the past could make that limit - Lewis and Bowe certainly could early in their careers.

You lose me after that. I agree that the jump from 175lb to 200lb is too big. I remember late in his career, Danny Green said he couldn't make 175lb anymore, but had a big size disadvantage against cruiserweights who cut to make 200lb. If anything, I think the obvious decision is this:

LHW - 175lb
CW - 190lb
BW - 210lb

No need for a 200lb in between - at that point you're just thinning out the talent pool. 210lb is generous for Bridgerweight.

Silly point regarding Tyson Fury. The guy weighed in the 240s when he wasn't overweight and he isn't really 6'9". He has also been decked by:

- 6'3" 232lb Neven Pajkic
- 6'3 210lb former cruiserwight Steve Cunningham
- 6'7" 212lb Deontay Wilder

Tyson Fury was toying with Steve and got caught showboating. Same with Wilder, showboating the whole fight.

No 200lb weight class? What about a talented natural 200 pound guy that doesn't have the skill to dominate at 210? He shouldn't recieve the recognition for his talent that smaller guys recieve at much lower weight increments? Adding these weight classes really wouldn't hurt anyone and certainly not the sport of boxing.

Steve Cunningham's speed and skills were giving Fury problems. I agree Tyson was being defensively negligent, but Cunningham was winning rounds and was ahead on 2 out of 3 scorecards when the fight was stopped.

Your scenario of a talented natural 200lb guy? If he can't cut to make 190lb, then he's big enough to compete at 210lb. Sure a 200lb division may suit him better, but too many divisions dilutes the talent pool and is bad for the sport.

[Jeff_lacy_ko]

If you want to get granular:

Aggregate rounds won for smaller guys vs their bigger challenger counterparts

Then youd have a meaningful statistical analysis of whether bigger hw are more successful than smaller

Not sure that would do much, for example you could have a smaller guy who wins 11 of 12 rounds, but keeps being knocked out in the 12th. By your metric he would have been extremely successful in the heavyweight division...

The issue is exactly what you said - how do you account for a guy like Brewster who got is butt kicked then knocked wlad out? He lost every round

Youd need to adjust and assign higher value to the knockout (but how much?) I havent figured out that adjustment. Im stewing on it

[jamesmcdonnell]

I think we're seeing a move to 240+ guys now, it's going to become more prevalent.

I think we're seeing more big men now at that size, who are not just lumbering lumps, but are good all around athletes, and I think at some point, you have to make adjustments. We're probably getting to the tipping point now.

[Ambling Alp II]

That's the problem. Almost none are good around athletes. The heavyweight division has sucked for seemingly forever.

[Ambling Alp II]

Again, people keep bringing up big guys winning the title.
How about when a big a guy actually fights a smaller guy? In real life. Not "Mythical Fights" where the bigger guy almost always wins.
Almost all of the fights were between two big guys. so of course a big guy is going to be the champions.

I'm saying that if the smaller guy is better, he will beat the bigger guy. If not, he won't.

We have to get away from typical lines like "Fighter A has a 20 pound weight advantage"

No, he doesn't have a weigh advantage. The weight itself doesn't do anything.
People act like 240 against 220 is the same as 140 vs 120. It's not. Never has been.

There were big heavyweights 100 years ago. The biggest guy has never been the best at any time. Not now. Not 10 years ago. Not 20. Not 100. Never. Ever.

I would have to respectfully disagree. The above graph shows the trend within the top 10 heavyweight fighters of the last 100 years. Whilst the biggest available guy might not have been the best, I think as the pool of larger guys has expanded, more and more skillful big men appeared supplanting the skillful little men.

Ambling Alp said : Again, I am not saying that heavyweights have not gotton bigger. I am saying many should not have.
The only way to test it is to look at fights where a bigger heavyweights fought a smaller heavyweight head to head. Nothing lese matters.

[Ambling Alp II]

When I get a chance some time, I will add up all the title fights between bigger heavyweights against smaller ones. That is really what needs to be done.

[Finkel]

Again, people keep bringing up big guys winning the title.
How about when a big a guy actually fights a smaller guy? In real life. Not "Mythical Fights" where the bigger guy almost always wins.
Almost all of the fights were between two big guys. so of course a big guy is going to be the champions.

I'm saying that if the smaller guy is better, he will beat the bigger guy. If not, he won't.

We have to get away from typical lines like "Fighter A has a 20 pound weight advantage"

No, he doesn't have a weigh advantage. The weight itself doesn't do anything.
People act like 240 against 220 is the same as 140 vs 120. It's not. Never has been.

There were big heavyweights 100 years ago. The biggest guy has never been the best at any time. Not now. Not 10 years ago. Not 20. Not 100. Never. Ever.

I would have to respectfully disagree. The above graph shows the trend within the top 10 heavyweight fighters of the last 100 years. Whilst the biggest available guy might not have been the best, I think as the pool of larger guys has expanded, more and more skillful big men appeared supplanting the skillful little men.

Ambling Alp said : Again, I am not saying that heavyweights have not gotton bigger. I am saying many should not have.
The only way to test it is to look at fights where a bigger heavyweights fought a smaller heavyweight head to head. Nothing lese matters.

The top fighters have gotten taller though, so with that comes a natural increase in weight. So I am guessing what you are arguing is the shorter fighters were wrong to pack on extra muscle to try and compete. i.e. They could have beaten this new breed of skilled super-heavies by coming in light at a weight that didn't diminish their natural speed advantage.

When I get a chance some time, I will add up all the title fights between bigger heavyweights against smaller ones. That is really what needs to be done.

I look forward to it, but I am curious how you will define bigger. For example. Mike Tyson would often weigh the same as or outweigh many of his taller opponents, but when he faced someone significantly taller and heavier than him, that was when he appeared to not be quite as dominant (though we are getting in the weeds with Tyson, because of claims about his true prime etc.) Anyway, I look forward to your findings.