Could M. Spinks or Floyd Patterson win titles in today's cruiser division

I think this is an overly harsh summation of the division, and weakens your argument by including an obvious element of bias towards the modern era.

The jury's still out on Gassiev, but I think we've seen enough of him to conclude that he's a very good fighter indeed, albeit one with obvious limitations against stick and movers. His inexperience as an amateur is actually not very apparent when he fights; he keeps a very cool head under pressure and maintains his punching form at almost all times. His timing and accuracy are first rate, and his defence is very solid as well. Not sure where you see the sloppiness there.

His wins against Lebedev and Dorticos were very good indeed. Lebedev was a little past it, but there was no indication he was shot; he simply seemed outhustled by the bigger and stronger man. The fact that he kept himself in the fight is more a testament to his tremendous heart and quality as a fighter than a condemnation of Gassiev's skills. Dorticos was a confident undefeated slugger with wins over the teak tough Kalenga and the dangerous Kudryashov. He wasn't some bum. Gassiev clinically picked him apart and finished the job when he found the opportunity to do so. I suspect Dorticos will prove to be one of those guys that will be a handful for a lot of fighters to come.

Referring to Mike Perez as a "heavyweight reject" is unfair and unnecessary. There was a point, only a few years back, when Perez was considered a top ten heavyweight. He was a proven fighter with proven skills, and the Briedis fight was predicted to a competitive affair with Briedis the slight favourite to win, which is how the fight played out. Aside from that, Briedis also has wins over Huck, Charr and Durodola, all solid fighters that were comprehensively beaten.

Mchunu is about as far from sloppy and inexperienced as you can get. He's a highly cerebral fighter with world class skills who happens to be drastically undersized in a division of huge men who can punch. His whitewash of the skilled Eddie Chambers gives a great indication of his merits as a pure boxer.

As for your saying that the current CW division is one of the weakest you've ever seen, well, you're entitled to that opinion if you like, but again I think it's a very harsh summation. I've been a fan of the CWs for years, and I've never seen this many top level operators competing as there are now. It's a hugely competitive division with cross pollination from the LHWs and HWs adding depth and kudos to its ranks, and it constantly produces FOTY material at the very highest levels of the sport. As a boxing fan I'm not sure how a division can be more proven than that.

 

Bias towards the modern era has nothing to do with it. Usyk is a talented fighter and has the potential to do great things at heavyweight, but it doens't change the fact that he unified one of the weakest divisions in boxing. I like Crawford also, but he also unified 140, which is almost as weak as cruiserweight. I still can't really judge how good Crawford is until he fights and beats Thurman or Spence.

After watching Dorticos get rocked and struggle to put a dent in a shot and overweight Edison Miranda I knew Dorticos had no power and would easily lose if he fought Gassiev, Usyk, Briedis, Lebdev, or Bellew. The fact that Gassiev took 12 rounds to stop Dortico's, who has awful footwork, no power, or chin said showed how limited and inexperienced Gassiev is. He's good puncher and durable, but not much else. Whyte would destroy Gassiev if Gassiev made the move to heavyweight and I don't even have that high of an opinion of Whyte.

Dorticos struggling with Miranda

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Bellew completely flattened Miranda when Miranda was better prepared and in much better shape.

Also, Mike Perez clearly couldn't cut it with even decent competition at heavyweight. He couldn't beat Takam and lost to Jennings, who is a good athlete, but a garbage boxer. He also got completely crushed by Povetkin. Perez moved down to the much weaker cruiserweight division and is still a nonfactor. Briedis having wins over Huck (shot), who was a good fighter about 4-5 years before he fought Briedis, Charr, a garbage heavyweight, and Durodola, who lost to Mchunu doens't say much. I rate Bellew way ahead of both Briedis and Gassiev for a reason.

I also have to laugh at you calling Mchunu a cerebral fighter. Eddie Chambers was a career heavyweight that was never that good anyway. He got completely dominated by Povetkin, Wlad, and Adamek. Mchunu's footwork is very inefficient, which is why he gasses all the time. Makabu took his time and flattened Mchunu late, since he knew Mchunu couldn't hurt him and the Mchunu would gas eventually and he did. In the Usyk fight Mchunu kept using the shoulder roll against Usyk, a taller southpaw. Anybody with a brain knows that you don't use the shoulder roll when giving up that much reach and height. Usyk kept punching over Mchunu's shoulder and stopped him. Mchunu never made any adjustments. Mchunu also recently lost to both Bejenaru and Oosthuizen due to his poor footwork and ring efficiency and neither fighter is that great. Until Mchunu learns how to use the ring better and cleans up his footwork he's always going to fall short. All of the current top 10 light heavyweights would beat Mchunu.

Every now and then Cruiserweight does produce an excellent talent like Holyfield, Haye, or Usyk and good talents like Cunningham and Huck, but for the most part the division is a dumping ground for mediocre Light Heavyweight and Heavyweights that can't cut it. Bellew wasn't championship material at light heavyweight, but was able to beat the #5 Cruiserweight and become a champion and would easily be Usyk's best opponent.

 

Strength of an era is ultimately an impossible thing to judge with any accuracy, but when the best routinely fight the best the most you can say is that there are no pretenders.

At any rate, now that there's a bit of money coming into the CW division we should see more fighters from other weights attempt to compete there. Their success or failure there should give us a better shape of the state of the division as it stands.

And Pavlik completely flattened Miranda when Miranda was even better prepared and in even better shape. Does that mean he would have moved up to CW and cleaned house? I think even you would say that that's unlikely.

I won't sing Dorticos's praises unduly, but prior to the Gassiev fight he'd already taken out the teak tough Youri Kalenga (a man who dropped and took Lebedev the distance) and the brutal punching, albeit glass jawed, Dmitri Kudryashov. He was clearly neither a weak fighter, nor a weak-chinned fighter, and a man brimming with confidence.

The fact Gassiev took twelve rounds to stop Dorticos actually highlights his maturity in my opinion. He kept calm under fire, picked his shots when he saw the opportunities to do so and finished the job when he had his man hurt. He wasn't hurt or in danger the whole fight, against a man known for his high workmate and good power. He didn't rush, he didn't panic or go wild, he simply went about his work and got the job done.

That's the pattern of most of Gassiev's fights.

Well Bellew only really has the shot and injured Haye, Makabu and the awful Flores on his resume. That's hardly a great case for being the number two cruiserweight is it? Bellew, for all we know, might turn out to be better than either man, but he needs to go a ways to prove it as things stand right now.

Chambers was a top ten HW for a number of years. He only really got dominated by Wlad. I must assume you haven't seen the other two fights.

Mchunu is essentially a midget fighting giants. Of course he's going to struggle.

He pretty much wins fights on his skills alone. He has very little physicality to fall back on.

Well, like I said above, now that more money is being invested in the division we should start to see more talented fighters emerging in its ranks.

 

It's hard for me to consider you arguing on the level when you criticise Briedis and Gassiev for beating "shot" versions of Huck and Lebedev, yet give Bellew credit for beating a ring rusty and seriously injured Haye. Neither Huck nor Lebedev were at their best when either man beat them, I can accept that, but at least they were still active at the top level and physically capable of moving around the ring without falling over. That instantly puts them two levels above the wreck Bellew fought.

Whether Haye is still dangerous to anyone is something we'll never know because he's now retired. I suspect he'd get run over by anyone that isn't a complete garbage man frankly. It's impossible to win fights at any level when you can't even stand upright.

 

Haye wasn't injured going into the first fight with Bellew. Haye injured himself late in the fight by still trying to fight like a young man when he wasn't anymore and also underestimated Bellew's timing and head movement, which is better than anybody's in the heavyweight or cruiserweight division at the moment. Haye shorted what career he had left by fighting Bellew, who was all wrong for him. Big slow guys that don't move like Miller or Martin would've been perfect opponents for Haye. It's the same reason Lennox Lewis dropped his IBF belt and and avoided Bryd, who was all wrong for him at that time in his career. Lewis instead focused on Vitali, who was a much easier match stylistically and also easy money.

Also, almost everyone and their mother picked Haye because Adonis had knocked Bellew and Haye still had power, but his reflexes weren't what they used to be. If Haye would've fought guys like Breazeale, Martin, and Miller instead of Bellew he would have three wins under his belt at the moment. Haye also completely underestimated Bellew's power, which is more than enough to keep any heavyweight honest.

Briedis has a weak resume. Besides Huck, who was shot Briedis only had wins over mediocre competition. Huck's reflexes and timing after the Povetkin fight started slipping, since he got a draw against a scrub like Afolabi, who he easily would've beaten before. By 2014-2015 Huck was shot. His speed and timing wasn't any good anymore and at best he became an opponent with a name for guys like Glowacki, Briedis, and Usyk.

Besides a shot Huck Briedis has wins over Durodola, who epitomizes how mediocre the cruiserweight division is and Perez, who was mediocre in the heavyweight division and dropped to a weaker division where he can compete in, but he's still not championship material even in the weaker cruiserweight division.

Lebdev going into the Gassiev fight was still durable, but his punch output and timing clearly aren't what they used to be due to age and Gassiev still barely won.

Gassiev and Bellew both beat the #5 cruiserweight. Gassiev beat the #5 Dorticos, who has the most padded record I've seen in years. Miranda completely destroyed the myth that Dorticos had power or durability. Miranda easily went the distance with Dorticos despite being inactive and a light heavyweight washout. Bellew beat Miranda into sumbmisdion a few years before. Bellew flattened the #5 Makabu, who unlike Dorticos can actually punch. Makabu crushed Mchunu, who for whatever reason gets hyped to the moon on this board.

Bellew also fought top competition at 175, which included a prime Adonis Stevenson, who could've easily ran through the cruiserweight division and a prime Chilemba, who would easily school guys Mchunu, Hunter, or Dorticos.

 

Lmao Patterson would be a heavyweight champion too, aftef destroying the cruiserweight division. Spinks gets cocky after winning cruiserweight and loses at HW

 

Cruiserweight Spinks beat Holmes. So yes.

 

Liked for the paraphrased Die Hard quote alone!

 

Haye was obviously injured going into the first fight, or at least hiding some serious issue that drastically limited his mobility. On top of that his timing was completely off, his shots were wild and sloppy, and he was noticeably slower and more sluggish than in his prime. He was the very definition of a shot fighter, and would have been taken out by any half decent cruiser based on that performance, let alone heavy. It was just Bellew's good fortune to pull the trick and expose what had been a mystery for so long. Congrats to him for that, but it was a win over an opponent with name value only, and needs to be recognised as such.

I couldn't care less what everyone predicted before the fight. That has no bearing on the actual result, or what we later learned of Haye's deplorably depleted condition. It's simply a reflection of what a glamour Haye had over casual fans for so long, and how poorly Bellew was regarded. Haye picked Bellew because he thought he would be an easy mark, no more, and he thought (hoped) he still had enough to get the job done. He didn't because he was shot.

And Bellew doesn't have any stronger a resume. Weaker in fact, since both Briedis and Gassiev's name opponents were still active, and are still fighting now, and both men also have secondary wins at the weight to bolster their resumes.

Briedis has Huck, Perez and Durodola. HW win over Charr.

Gassiev has Lebedev, Dorticos and Wlod.

Bellew has Haye, Makabu and BJ Flores. LHW win over Chilemba.

Point out to me again why one of those guys deserves so much more credit than the others, because your argument right now is not convincing in the slightest.

So Pavlik kicks Bellew's ass, a man with a 95% KO ratio can't punch, and Adonis runs through the entire CW division with ease. Presumably you think Darnell Boone and Joshua is a red hot, fifty fifty type affair.

Let's keep things more in the realm of reality please.

 

I like Gassiev but he looked poor in his last fight can see both Spinks and Floyd soundly out boxing him he's not yet the finished article. Usyk is very skilled and would present a much bigger challenge but could see both getting a win need to see Usyk more against different styles to make a reasonable prediction.

 

I think it's a mistake to draw too many conclusions about Gassiev from the Usyk fight, since Usyk presents such a unique mix of elements for anyone that fights him. You might do better against him that you think, or you might do much worse. It's hard to gauge how well you'll perform beforehand, since there's no one you can really spar against to prepare for him.

I'd like to see some of the quicker, slicker fighters at LHW move up to test the waters at cruiser, since aside from Usyk and Mchunu the division is loaded with bangers, which is hugely exciting but a little imbalanced.