How would you rank the Quality of today's versions of the original 8 weight classes?

void is void

 

Heavy - ****
Light heavy - the pensioners club
Middle - full of people not wanting to fight each other
Welter - top class as always
Light - in transition
Feather - about to be top class
Bantam - average
Fly - average

Most of the better action over the next couple of years will come at super middle and light welter IMO.

So long as the fights are made :yep

 

Welterweight will be hurt by Floyd and Pac not fighting, hopefully they either get it on or just retire - because this is embarrassing.

Either way, you will have the likes of Bradley and Khan moving up soon - hopefully HBO will give them the TV dates and platform to make big names of themselves rather than just recycling the same old names.

At feather, I've got Rafa Marquez bursting Lopez's bubble and blowing the division wide open, hopefully Gamboa after that.

Ideally we'll see more Super Six or similar tournaments, and further marginalisation of Sillyman & Co - boxing doesn't need titles.

HBO and the European networks need to do more to force the big fights by blocking alternate opponents - we want to see Williams vs Martinez II, and Haye vs Wlad.

Do you think Haye will fight again?

I'm not convinced :good

 

I must disagree on some points.

Heavyweight is indeed ****.

Light heavyweight has young talents to replace the old guard - Pascal, Dawson, Cloud, Shumenov, the winner of Cleverly-Murat, and maybe Bellew can all carry the division several years into the future until the next crop.

Middleweight is not full of people unwilling to fight each other - it just has champions who are unwilling to unify, and this has been the case for years. Jacobs vs. Pirog tonight, along with Pavlik's ballsy optional defense against Martinez, Barker vs. Macklin, and hopefully Golovkin vs. N'Dam N'Jikam show that the division's best talents are indeed willing to square off. Even Sturm is somewhat redeeming himself by defending against a somewhat legitimate contender in Lorenzo, who isn't a top talent in the division but is more credible than shot and inactive light middleweight Mayorga (who was last rumored to be challenging Sturm).

Welterweight is actually a bit thin beyond the part-time superstars Mayweather and Pacquiao (who both fight a mere once or twice a year and are both purportedly fighting at 154 in their next outings). Mosley's shot, Clottey can't take the sport seriously enough to be world class, and Berto is fatally flawed to an extent that likely won't be rectified this deep into his graduation from prospect to "champion" (he won a vacant belt against Miki Rodriguez and has defended against two light welterweights, and arguably lost to Collazo). Beyond those five? All the best names in the division are fairly poor. The fact that Cinderella man Rafal Jackiewicz is fighting for a major title is proof enough of this. There are some promising young prospects in the likes of Mike Alvarado and Mike Jones, but they're a ways off from stepping up, unlike their middleweight counterparts.

Lightweight is getting very interesting. Saying it's in transition is pretty spot-on...it's worth noting that it's a transition for the better. There is a mix of young talent from across the globe and lower-weight champions who have moved up making for quite the intriguing potpourri.

Featherweight is arguably already top class. There are easily half a dozen superfights (at least for diehard fans) that could realistically be made this very instant. This is a much improved division - exemplified by even Daniel Ponce De Leon evolving from a one-trick-pony into a mature boxer-puncher who can at this point probably hang with all but a couple of the top names (he'll probably never beat Lopez).

Bantamweight is a bit top-heavy, but average might be too harsh an assessment. There are some big names at the very top, and could make for an exciting round-robin with Montiel, Hasegawa, Mares, Perez, Kameda, Moreno, Cermeno, and even the fading Darchinyan.

Flyweight is decidedly average - on that you are correct. It might even be fair to say below average. After the towering twin Thais in their thirties, there is a dearth of up-and-coming talent. The winner of Daiki Kameda vs. Takefumi Sakata could be a player in the years to come, as could Viloria if he stays dedicated and continues to improve. There will need to be an influx of new blood (or emigrants from the lighter weights) for much sustained interest in flyweight to develop.

 

the heavyweights are the most stacked they've been in decades!

you got two dominant champions, making every title fight a seat of your chair nailbiter! can the underdog challenger defeat the defending legend?

then you got the faded power punchers who can win with a single punch, along with your undersized technical masters who maybe just maybe summon the discipline to execute the perfect gameplan to shock the world.

it's pure theatre

 

The thing is by only looking at the old 8 weight classes you ignore about half the boxers in the sport

 

My answer to this thread's question is indirect, a bit off-topic.

Basically, I am aggravated to hell because boxing is now much harder to follow than it was in the '70s and '80s, when there were fewer weight classes, and fewer champions. Four world champions in each of 17 weight classes makes the sport impossible to track.

In the '70s and '80s, I knew who all the champions and leading contenders were. It was easy to get a sense of where the fighters stood relative to each other, ability-wise. It was easy to visualize what the different future developments would be, given the potential pairings of top fighters. Not so anymore.

Also, current promotional, media, and political realities make it easy to turn a second rate contender into a world champion. That abases the quality of the sport. This didn't happen as much in the '70s and '80s.

European super-middleweight and middleweight world champs, for example, such as Froch, Kessler, Zbik, Sturm, Sebastian, and others, would not have been champions in the '70s or '80s. Truth be told, these guys would barely have qualified as top five contenders in the days when Alan Minter, Vito Antuofermo, Rodrigo Valdez, and Marvin Hagler ruled the middleweight division. In other words, we would not have heard much about these current European fighters had they fought in the '70s and '80s. Today's boxing atmosphere makes these European fighters seem like big stars, though.

To make a long story short, judging the merits of champions today is kind of like assessing the value of Confederate money.

 

I think that had this division existed a "mainstream" weight class in the '70s and '80s, it would be dominated by boxers better than the current top 168 pounders. Decades ago, top guys from 160 lbs would have moved up to supermiddle, or excellent small lightheavyweights would have moved down in weight to fill this weight class.

It's good that this weight class is legitimized, but I'm not satisfied with what I see in that division. I can't help but wonder if the "Super Six" media exposure devalues the sport a little?

Consider the history of boxing in the 20th century: in the 1950s, overexposure through television broadcasts literally killed the sport. Ditto for the '00s and '10s.