A lot of hardcore fans say 140 and below is the best boxing because there is less emphasis on power and more on skills. They are wrong. 160 and above is better because to be a great MW or above there is no potshotting, no shortcuts and no bull****. You need to put up or shut up. Power and physical strength are critical. If you dont have a huge punch you need to be extremely physically strong (think Ward) and if you arent physically strong you need to have a huge punch (like Kovalev) did. There is no bullshitting at 160 and above. It's a ****ing fight. In the lower weights you see guys prance around the ring showing skillz, as they say... 160 and above is what separates the men from the boys. When Tito came into to Hopkins backyard at 160, Hopkins said I'm a physically strong MW, 6 feet tall, he wont handle my strength. Look at what GGG did to Brook. Look at what Hagler did to Hearns. Straight up power boxing! Once you get to MW, the top fighters are NOT little guys. That's why the 10oz gloves come into play. Guys like Whitaker, Lomachenko, Mayweather, etc. Those guys with that style would never cut it at 160 and above. They would simply get walked down, roughoused and brutalized. I can remember when Bute fought Froch. And everybody thought Bute would school Froch with skills. And then Froch said **** that, I'm just gonna go straight at him and destroy him.
You pick guys who aren't even CLOSE to natural MW's to make a point about their power not cutting it at 160? What you describe happens at lower weights as well. Too much broad generalization for me.
There is a clear line of demarcation here. Plenty of guys from lower weight classes move up, but dont try their luck at 160. There is a reason Floyd and Manny never went to 160. They didnt want that work. The fighters are too big there. Most fighters can move up in weight rather easily at the lower weights. Its extremely difficult in the higher weights. There is a reason for this. You cant bull**** at the higher weights.
They would get Hagler'ed that's why. You can dance around in the lower weights. Cant do that much in the higher weights.
You gotta be kidding me. Every fighter has his limit on where they can move up and still be themselves. Just more generalizing. No.... the determining factor is their starting size. Their frame, their structure, their height.....
Well-articulated non-sense is still non-sense. Any fighter can hit a brick-wall and overstep their weight limits, regardless of which weight range they fight at. It happened to Nonito at 126, happened to Chocolatito at 115 against SSR(though he went on to have success at the weight, mostly against fighters coming up in weight like himself or the ones who are just not good), happened to Carl Frampton at 130, even, to a degree, Lomachenko at 135. The only point this thread makes is Tinman’s lack of knowledge for weightclasses below 160. And you can box a bigger, stronger and more powerful opponent’s head off at higher weight classes, we have Oleksandr Usyk to thank for the latest example of this. Also, B-Hop beat Trinidad because he was the better skilled fighter. The only factor that size played was his reach advantage which helped him establish the jab.
Middleweight has always been my favourite division because guys have power but are also highly technical. There have been so many good MWs
You're right, he was. But I think that was partly a technical issue. Usyk is masterful at positioning himself in the clinch to negate the opponent's strength. He also put on 20llbs after fighting the King of roughhouse, Chisora which supports your view that a core level of physical strength was needed to platform his technical abilities close up. Timestamped an example vs Chisora of how he 'won' the clinch with excellent body positioning. This content is protected
Floyd and Manny fighting at 160 would have meant their 6th and 9th division. I could see using a comparison for a guy that started at 147. Not guys that started way below that.
What tf even is this logic? Let's send in a middleweight to fight a heavyweight and see how well he does