Now that his career is esentialy over how do we the classic section rate Chris Byrd as a fighter? The fact that he was able to drop down to light heavyweight albeit in a loosing effort puts his acomplishments at heavyweight in a whole new light. On that basis he is effectively the Tommy Loughran of his era. A small technical fighter with little power who beat many of the top heavyweights but never quite clinched the crown. Also how might his career have been diferent if he had chosen to fight at light heavyweight and cruiserweight.
I personally feel all of the heavyweights today legacy just went down(especially vitali's) with Bryds dominating knockout loss at light-heavyweight. So much for light-H not being able to cut it at heavyweight against the "superheavyweights", bryd was champ at heavy for 5 years! I think this proves most of the past cruisersweights of old times can easily bulk up and beat the superheavyweights of today like bryd did. Bryd was exposed last night at 175lb by a mediocre fighter for crying out loud.
You reckon right, but think of the saying "its not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog". Is it just a coincidence former middleweights like chris bryd roy jones and james toney bulked up and succesfully became alpha heavyweight champions? Even if you back to the 1980s you will see big heavyweights like trevor berbick were losing to cruiserweights St Gordon, and if im not mistake light-H eddie gregory have snipes a deathly close fight, light-H spinx beat undefeated ATG larry holmes. It just makes me wonder if you allowed fighters like walcott, charles, patterson to bulk up into the 210lb range how good they would do today.
It dosnt come as any shock to me that Byrd was esentialy a filled out light heavyweight but it dose mean that we have to give him more credit for his acomplishments at heavyweight on a pound for pound basis. Now if he had chosen to campaign at cruiserweight he could really have cleaned the division up before Mormeck did and if he had fought at light heavyweight who knows?
It makes me wonder how sucessfully fighters like david haye would do bulking up to heavyweight division agree
I am by no means sticking up for the current batch of oft boring heavyweights. I am simply saying you considering Byrd at 37 and recently stopped as well as dropping serious weight to be "exposed" is IMO bull****. If he did it many years ago and was found to drop the weight with no probs fair enough, but not today.
ok john fair enough, but going by your own logic you must agree with me then your respect for archie moore has gone way up considering he used to do this kind of thing consistently for a DECADE long in his 40s!!!! and Archie Would win everytime!
Byrd was never anything special regardless of the weight he would have fought at. Chris thorughout his career has been the epitome of a defensive spoiler with very little else going for him IMO.He was no classy stylist thats for sure.
Yea I think he shouldnt have been at 175, he went there for Roy Jones and Calazage paydays now he cant get HW paydays, he wasnt there because it was a good weight for him. He was 37 and way past his best Also give some credance for his opponent who looked **** hot. He must have been really up for this 1
Fighters going up to heavyweight are in the same boat as any other fighting going up in weight and fighting above their optimal weight. Some type of fighters do well giving up weight, some types of fighters do not do well going up in weight Smaller Evasive, slick fighters will do well in going up against big heavyweights. Fighters who take a punch to land a punch will do well against big heavyweights generally speaking
Archie is a very very special fighter longevity wise Suzie, the benchmark forever. But really mate Byrd losing did not chance my view of Archie one bit and i can't see why you think it should. Look at it for what it is.
Funny, but weight sometimes is decieving...Toney,Byrd,Jones looked pretty impressive with the BIG BOys but lets see if Toney tried to go down to his normal weight (fit) how he would fare. Heavyweights have power but can plodding 4 rd fighters...Byrd was competitive vs Povetkin but not George...Jones vs Ruiz but was demolished vs Johnson and Tarver...Archie Moore was a legend who was 55-2-1 leading up to the Marciano fight and was 38-3-2 after...he beat the best men in both divisions and one of his loses in his 1st streak was a DQ the other a close controversial loss to Johnson who he beat 4 times,last one a Ko... he lost to Patterson 11 fights after Rocky and he lost to Ali in his 2nd to last fight and he had 4 more times as many fights as Byrd,Jones and was suposedly older. In today's day of overweight, sterioded 4 rd heavys, how much is Fluff
It was clear that Byrd wouldn't make a good light-heavyweight or cruiserweight back in 1995, when he met Arthur Williams. The speed and skills at lower weights are leagues ahead of heavyweights.