Genesis of the Cruiserweight division

Spinks getting waxed by Coetzee and Holmes was a good example. Holmes waxing Ocassio was a good example. Spinks only beat Ali because Ali was nearly shot.

To be honest, there weren't many good 200 lb Heavyweights in the time period you are describing. Maybe Quarrey in '75 but he was past his peak. Ocassio wasn't too good, but did beat a disinterested and out of shape Young.

There really wasn't a good reason to start the Cruiserweight division.

It was dominated by 175 lb guys moving up and a mediocre Ocassio dropping down.

De Leon was very good, but he moved up from 175 lbs.

That Ocasio got and held a title showed how weak the division was, at first.

It created more $$ for the WBA and WBC. That was probably the main reason it was created.

The weight issue was largely drummed up.

Camel, Parlov and De Leon could have made 175 lbs. And Ocassio and Spinks could have continued to fight at Heavyweight.

You don't need to start a whole division when only like 5 guys are legitimate contenders. They couldn't even come with 10 legitimate contenders.

I think over time after 1980 the average HW did get bigger, so the need for the Cruiserweight division did grow. And there were plenty of natural 190 lb guys who were too big for 175 lbs.

I do think Marciano would be a Cruiserweight today.

He'd be way too small to compete at Heavyweight.

 

For what it's worth, the top heavyweights definitely got bigger and taller in the early 1970s:
https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/heavyweight-size-explosion-in-the-early-1970s.588396/

 

Funny division. Holyfield was the biggest name in the division and Haye was a big deal for a while. some fighters like Morer didn't even bother with it.some good fighters there now .

 

It's a division which has grown more necessary as time has gone on. Whatever the reason for its genesis, I'm glad we've got it now. Absolutely stacked division.

 

ORANGE, Calif. (Oct. 24, 2016) – LaRon Mitchell (15-0, 13 KOs) claimed the vacant NABF Jr. Heavyweight Championship on Friday night over Scott Alexander (12-2-2, 6 KOs) in a tightly contested fight that was a lot closer than the scorecards would indicate. Mitchell, who has showed an increasing level of comfort fighting in close quarters, pressured Alexander onto the ropes for most of the fight. Alexander kept a high guard to minimize punishment and countered nicely to keep Mitchell honest. Mitchell, however, would not be denied in his first career title fight. “It wasn’t very pretty,” said Mitchell after the fight. “But I’ll take an ugly win over a pretty defeat any day of the week.” Alexander would fight from behind early due to an accidental slip in the third that was ruled a knockdown. Mitchell took full advantage and never allowed Alexander to slip into his normal routine of boxing from the outside to set up power shots. “I knew I had to take the fight to him because of his jab,” Mitchell said. “Our game plan worked and now I go home with the NABA title.” Scores: 97-92, 98-91 twice.

Read more at:

 

I doubt that we would need an N that large to generate statistically significant results via a basic ANOVA test. But more importantly, so what? It's pretty clear that the top heavyweight boxers in the 1970s were bigger and taller than those of the 1960s. Even if the sample size didn't provide enough power to statistically rule out a silly null hypothesis that it was random fluctuation, seeing that the heavies remained that large over the next 45 years (and grew even bigger in the past 20 years or so) would support my "theory" that the apparent change in size was real.

Looking at the top ten guys tells us how big the top ten guys are. That information is pretty significant in its own right. The top 10 guys are the men who dominate the division, the champions and top contenders. I know that some posters in this forum live in some fantasy world where size doesn't really matter for heavyweights, but if you're a 6-ft, 180lb boxer (or his manager), I would think that a heavyweight division dominated by mainly 6'3-6'5 210lb+ types looks very different than a division dominated by mainly 5'11-6'1 190-200lb types.

 

Most of what you've written is unresponsive to my comment and irrelevant to your question of why people may have perceived a need to create a cruiserweight division. I really don't care why heavyweights got much bigger over time -- whether it was because of training, scouting, or population growth producing a large crop of athletic big men over time. I don't even get what you're arguing exactly or what kind of evidence you're looking for here.

I don't see any substantive reason to question whether the top 70s heavyweights were bigger on average than the top 60s heavyweights. Do you? If so, what? What exactly is your theory here? It would be far too tedious to prove such an obvious point, but if you don't believe me, just compile a list of the contemporary height, weight, and reach of all the heavyweights who made the Ring Magazine Top 10 from 1971-1980 and compare it to a similar list of fighters from any previous decade.

You seem to have ignored a lot of my comment. Do you disagree with my claim that such a statistical test would probably find statistically significant results? (not that a reasonable person should need statistical significance to recognize the change in size). Do you disagree with my observation that "if you're a 6-ft, 180lb boxer (or his manager), I would think that a heavyweight division dominated by mainly 6'3-6'5 210lb+ types looks very different than a division dominated by mainly 5'11-6'1 190-200lb types"?

BTW, the cruiserweight division has long been full of big, strong 6'0+ men who'd have been fighting at heavyweight instead if they were as convinced as some of the posters in this forum of the relative insignificance of size. Instead, it seems that they mostly just move up when they age a little and end up having a harder time making it down to 200 for every fight.

 

Came across this excerpt from an article in one of my old Ring magazines, from former correspondent Arthur Rembert Jr. It was in the April 1980 issue (on page 22), which was probably printed a month or two after the first WBC cruiserweight title fight. The title was something like “Cruiserweight The Division: Does anyone Know What it is” (weird capitalization and all).


“Although neither The Ring nor the WBA has adopted the cruiserweight concept, it is not a new idea. Indeed, for years knowledgeable boxing people have encouraged the powers-that-be to create a new division which would sit somewhere between the light heavyweight and heavyweight classes. Preferably one with fighters weighing between 175 and 200 pounds as opposed to a mere 190.

The Ring Record Book and Encyclopedia tells us that former greats Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney and Rocky Marciano very seldom, if ever, weighed more than 190 pounds. Not only that, but both Marciano and Dempsey freely admitted that their best fighting weights were 188 and 186 respectively. What we have to remember, however, is that when we speak of Marciano and Dempsey, we’re talking about two of the greatest heavyweight champions in boxing history.

Just as the rest of the world has grown over the years, today’s fighter is bigger, stronger, and faster than yesterday’s edition. We simply must face the fact that the day of the heavyweight champion weighing less than 190 pounds is passé. The time-honored theory that a good big man beats a good little man takes on an added dimension when you try to envision a fighter weighting 186 pounds taking on the likes of Earnie Shavers, John Tate, Larry Holmes, George Foreman, or Muhammad Ali.”

 

Between 1975 and 1980, did we see any fighters weighing between 176 and 190 who were competitive with any 200 lb. + top 10 heavyweights?

I'm not a fan of the huge number of new weight divisions and sub-divisions that have spawned since the late 1970's, but I think Cruiserweight was a necessary addition.

'Course the WBC was likely just thinking that more divisions = more titles = more sanctioning fees.

 

As much as the cruiserweight division was badly needed, it seems that there really have never been any huge super mega fights in it. All the big paydays are at heavyweight. It seems like all the fighters who have won belts at cruiserweight eventually move up to heavyweight. A couple like Evander Holyfield and David Haye have been successful in doing so, while others like Dwight Qawi, Al Cole, Tomasz Adamek were not.

 

It's a terribly promoted division with a predominantly non-American and non-British makeup, which has limited its exposure in the west. Considering how little attention is paid to it even by hardcore boxing fans it almost seems like a separate sport at times. The potential is absolutely huge, and has been for years, but for some reason neither fans nor promotors seem to be interested in investing. Perhaps because it's still seen as a training ground for smaller heavyweights rather than a fully fledged division in its own right.