BoxRec

Why Did Chris Byrd Shrink Himself Down To 174 Pounds for his last fight?

It made no sense at all...

It made sense at the time.

oliverfennell wrote:It made sense at the time.

How?

I watched the fight...It was kind of sad...

Sure, the fight turned out that way, but BEFORE the fight, it made sense to drop a division or two.

At least he didn't take that final beating from a heavyweight.

He was always a natural light HW, he ate up to over 200 lbs for the $.

He simply went down to 175 too fast and when he was too old.

dempseyfire wrote:He was always a natural light HW, he ate up to over 200 lbs for the $.

He simply went down to 175 too fast and when he was too old.

Yes sir, but as you know usually as a fighter ages he gets bigger...He shrunk himself down for that fight...Nothing against Byrd but I never much cared for his style...

oliverfennell wrote:Sure, the fight turned out that way, but BEFORE the fight, it made sense to drop a division or two.

Dropping one, yes.

Dropping two, not so much.

He's been fighting all the way up around 210 for way too long - for almost his entire career, to be exact.

At the very least, he should've dropped only to cruiserweight first, even if only to test how he would handle the weight loss.

Though IMO, it wouldn't have helped him either way. The guy was just shot. He was done after Wlad pummeled him for the second time, and maybe even earlier than that. Byrd tried to fight smaller men in the hopes that it would compensate for being shot, but the simple truth is that when you're shot, you're shot, and nothing you do can change that.

He probably had a dream where Jesus told him so...

boxbible wrote:He probably had a dream where Jesus told him so...

He should try Risperidone.

Well he chose to drop to LHW as it had more 'money' going for it
better pay days and was more presitigious than the CW div.

Byrd was a MW back in his amateur days and as we all know he
became a small HW by modern standards.

At the time it did make sense, Byrd who was easily past his best
was still a capable fighter, though he was struggling amongst the
heavies.

In hindsight it was a sad day watching him get KO'd so easily
by a relatively light punching un-exceptional LHW.

The thing I always figured was that Byrd made HW's miss, and
was able to do so well defensively (generally) against bigger
and taller men. Well smaller guys are faster and throw from
other angles and one can feel very slow and awkward when
going from HW to a much smaller weight div.

It doesn't make sense because the older you get, the slower you get... and moving down divisions means you're gonna face boxers faster than what you've been used to. And for a slick boxer, it's even more disadvantageous than a brawler or puncher.

If Jesus told Byrd to drop to Lightheavy in a dream then Jesus must of been just foolin' with him. However now that I think about it God told Holyfield that he should continue fighting until he was the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion. God must be a boxing fan to get that involved.

Everyone thought it was a good idea before he got knocked out.

actjac wrote:If Jesus told Byrd to drop to Lightheavy in a dream then Jesus must of been just foolin' with him. However now that I think about it God told Holyfield that he should continue fighting until he was the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion. God must be a boxing fan to get that involved.

As Seargeant Steiner said on the Ukrainian front in 1944, "God is a saidist".