What is the fixation of weight on the heavyweights of the past?

Why not? Look what Alvarez is going at the moment. Consistently whooping men much larger then he is. Through out the hw division is examples of men moving up and being very successful.

 

I am of the opinion that if on equal training grounds past fighters are just as good as today’s fighters. I don’t think it’s a stretch. Most people say Ali was the best. But by their own arguments he would be to small today. I don’t believe that. And James Toney and Roy Jones blown up middle weights moved up not to long ago and were competitive. The only reason you don’t see men fighting at 195 is because of a cruiser division

 

I agree with part of this.
Ali is ranked # 1 or 2 by most at HW. Although if you add up those who have Louis or others #1, then subtract the percentage who have Ali as the best in terms of performance, but not necessarily head to head, I do not see the evidence that it would be the majority.
Likely at least a plurality though.

I do believe that Ali even at his 210-215 lbs. peak might well be the best H2H.
Although with changes in rules like 12 round fights & enforcement, it would be difficult.
Yet since he did not rely on power, & with exceptional natural talent & will, he may have enough to still be #1.

But the arguments re: Toney & Jones moving up are good ones for the primacy OF size.

1) Jones was best at SMW-& even then I believe his in-rung weight was ~ 15 lbs. heavier, in the 180's right?
2) Toney benefited from steroids when he moved up, under all that fat.
3) The fact is that they were at least HW size-200 + when they actually fought at HW.
4) You likely would see a few fighting at 195 if there was no CW division.
But since size is one factor that matters, & a small advantage in any area means a lot when things are competitive at the top levels...

Besides some fighting for experience & paychecks in the 190's, the vast majority would dehydrate to LHW.
If they were already quite low body fat & mid-late 190's, then it would be difficult & less healthy to lose 10% + of their bodyweight in water in such a short time between weigh in & the fight itself.

5) Toney & Jones even at HW would never have been competitive against the best fighters around at HW. They cherry-picked a very few favorable matches between them.

The CW division is very necessary as athletes have gotten larger, & often exciting.

 

I think this needs clearing up. A name change is definitely required for sub 200lb heavyweights…and it is not “cruiserweight”.

with very few exceptions, The cruiserweights really represent the previous physical limit of world class big guys. so a division between lightheavyweight and Superheavyweight should be necessary. But it should be called heavyweight. As it is in Amatuer boxing.


The name “cruiserweight”, now that it has a 24 hr weigh in for a 200lb limit, is not necessary. It is a type of heavyweight we already had. Historically it always has been. Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were heavyweights.

So Let’s phase out the word “cruiserweight” and follow what Amatuer boxing did. They didn’t tell heavyweights they had to weigh heavier and call them CW like the pros did. They kept it as it should be then named the giant ones SHW. And it worked!

With a 24 hour weigh in, the Heavyweight division in professional boxing should have a cut off of say 210lb. The natural cut off for a hundred years under traditional methods.

I think the Superheavyweight division is necessary for pro boxing too.

SHW is the new division, representing the new physical limits of World class boxers. The group that came into existence only because of rule changes, advances in science, more widely available information in modern nutrition and perhaps PEDs.

we already had Cruiserweights. They were historically known as “heavyweight”. Just do away with that word.

 

That is one way to do it. Although there was no one "natural" fit HW limit, especially when you had guys near & over 6.5' tall or more, as there have always been.
Your system makes good sense assuming day before (dishonest) weigh ins are the best way to go.
Although preventing angerous rehyration should be stressed also.

Although even *if* this works the best empirically-well even assuming it does not, you still should have a CW division.
Why? Because at most you can only safely rehydrate 10% of your body weight. So what about all those guys who weigh mid-190's-210 or even 220? Those guys cannot or cannot safely de & rehydrate to LHW.
They are naturally not what you would call "HW", so would have to be overweight or have redundant muscle to qualify.
An still be fighting guys who would rehydrate on average to at least near 230.

Since the average athlete has gotten somewhat bigger, I think it would be bad to elimiate that huge swath that covers the modern day CW.
Take away 3 & 4 lbs. differences in the lower weight classes, not what a massive category when we need more to accomodate big men fairly!

 

in Amatuer boxing there is no need for a cruiserweight division. 178lb is the cut of for LH. Between 178 and 200lb is heavyweight. Above this Superheavyweight.

all the guys over 175 up to 200 are currently called CW in pro boxing. This is wrong. These are the natural heavyweight class which gives plenty of scope for all big men under 6’6” tall who want to be good technical boxers without relying on wrestling and leaning on.

In Amatuer Boxing 178lb - 200lb is called “heavyweight”. For some reason pro boxing calls the same class of men “cruiserweights”. This is wholly wrong and incorrect. How can something called the cruiserweight division recruit heavyweight boxers of EXACTLY the same size turning over to the pros?

the guys of 190 to 200 fit perfectly into something already called “heavyweight” in Amatuer boxing. A 210lb to 220lb guy would be closer in dimension to the 190lb guy than say the 260lb giant in the Amateur Superheavyweight division. I really don’t see why this is more of an issue for professional boxing than it already is in Amateur boxing?

I guess a further 10 pound cut off to accommodate 220lb men like Larry Holmes and Ali could be added to the pro limit for the division sitting between SHW and LH to allow for older heavyweights.

I guess this is possible in the cruiserweight division now?

 

Each day we wake, we are in the greatest era ever. Boxing only progresses forward. Each and every day.

 

Marciano>Lewis

 

Be grateful I do not absorb your soul into the void again feeble hermit.

 

I saw that fight but they called Marciano "Justin Fortune".

 

I respect your opinions a lot choklab, so i hope you can see that this is an example where there is not one "right" & every other position is wrong, as if it was a moral issue. It is a matter of what is most practical & accomodates people all around.

The main thing is you overlook that the amateurs are generally younger & lighter folks.
Then there is the question of whether rules vary re: same day weigh ins: without them, the amateur standard which seems almost identical to the pros category of CW superfiscially is even smaller, since they would weigh about the same in the ring.

Your system is not bad at all, but it provides less categories/divisions in the one area we can use more because of the natural expansion of size 9& some unnatural/PEDs lol). At the top of the charts.

To answer your last question, it would be really difficult & unhealthy for a man to lose & gain 30 lbs.-even at that weight about 15%-when the largest recognized fairly safe amount to rehydrate is 10%.
If it could be done safely-which is an empirical question-I would prefer everyone weigh in close to the fight & that be nearly exactly their real weight!
The weight draining is not healthy; the fear is that without rehydration guys will overdo it to make weight & thus be weakened, including in depleted cerebral spinal fluid...

I get what you are implying, & I agree it is GOOD that one need not be a huge & PED infused size to be the Baddest Man on the Planet.
But anyway few guys are gonna be competing or successful at HW these days under the 220's.

And it can add excitement if say we have a HW at that weight-or a Wilder sometimes even lighter due to having no legs-fighting a SHW, which could start in the 230's.

 

Actually thanks for bringing up thag fight...feel like I have better context now if the two ever met...and after watching that fight I don’t think Lewis does as well as I initially thought. May be a real toss up.

 

You wish!

 

LOL Yeah, I reckon.