If you consider Helenius TKO4 Kownacki a massive upset... don't.

Not bad, I'd probably turn a few of those yellows/"worse than" into greens/'same", and the greens into reds.

I don't think acknowledging the perennial mediocrity of HW is even all that much of a "contrarian hipster" stance. Unplugging from the casual matrix is my idea of keeping it real.

...but I'm preaching @ the choir; we're more or less in lock-step here.

If you break it down, a good way to look at it, or at least a good jumping off point to get things organized would be "how many names down the list do you need to go before you reach guys that in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM deserve to be in a conversation about the pound for pound top hundred?"

For the heavyweights, you have Fury, Usyk and Joshua. I know you'd be inclined to include Wilder (I would not) - so fine, that's four. Hell, toss in my dark horse pick (if he were to ever be fully motivated & prepared, a dream "Tokyo Douglas" version that could be the h2h nightmare I want to be), Parker, and we have 5. That's as generous to HW as you can possibly be. Guys like, Ruiz, Ortiz, Pulev, Dubois - nah. All decent contenders within the storm in a teacup of the heavyweight division, but just flat out not top 100 p4p material.

At, say, 115lbs, you have Gallo, Chocolatito (even past his prime), Ancajas, Ioka, Wangek, Aloyan, Moloney, Izz-Gon, and Cintrón. I can say with confidence that all of those guys p4p outrank every HW outside the aforementioned four - by pretty big margins, actually.

 

*mediocre. As long as you have (potentially) BJS, Canelo, Jacobs, Plant, and Bandera Roja in the mix, you can't really call it dreadful. Now, subtract all those guys and it literally is a dumpster fire and even worse arguably than 105lbs.

Ehh... pluck a guy at random in any major org's rankings in either division from any spot after 5 or 6, and you'll find they're more or less on par.

Case in point...IBF #11 at heavy is Charles Martin; at SMW, Alfredo Angulo. WBC #6? Adam Kownacki versus John Ryder. WBO #10? Zhilei Zhang versus Jürgen Brähmer ... get my drift?

Very much comparable depth. Only difference between the divisions is that Fury is a bigger name (and yes, probably a better p4p fighter) than any established full-timers at SMW. (but not Canelo, and I'd argue maybe not even Danny J. or BJS)

Okay yes, and I project him to rule the roost if he gets the match-ups and prove himself the h2h #1 - but, fact is, he's currently 1-0. So let's slow down.

...yet to actually happen, though, so...counting those chickies before they've hatched..

ehhhhhh, how many times do we need to get burned to learn the lesson that a wildly successful amateur (especially at heavyweight) isn't going to necessarily have all that smooth a transition into the pros? None of those guys have done jackshit yet, so they don't count towards a divisions current strength returns.

 

A bottle? Have you ...never seen Vitali Klitschko? Try a damn case. Or a keg might do it.

 

Are you sure that isn't your pro-HW bias creeping in, though? As far as your preference of watching fights at the weight, because of the (real or illusory) higher propensity of kayos, etc?

Daniel freaking Dubois isn't light years better p4p than any equivalently rated SMW. (in the case of the WBC number eight spot at 168, that's Brähmer)

If anything I'd say Brähmer (even an over the hill version) >>> Dubois, p4p.

...and I feel like Dubois is exemplary of the kind of guy people mean when they say "HW is full of interesting contenders that could all make interesting fights against each other".

 

How I feel as well. Last heavyweight prospects I got really excited about were Rivas and Hrgović - one a case of "waited too long to go pro and turned out to be kind of a bust" already; the other maybe headed that way.