In which division would Jack Sharkey fight today?

Yes, there is a chance Sharkey will fight at the higher weights. It's all career-dependent. What's true is that fighters almost always want a strap and almost always chase that strap at the lowest possible weight that they can muster. Almost every other fighter is doing the same.

Getting into specifics: Sharkey, aged 24, could clearly lose weight by modern standards while weighing around the same weight Kovalev came to the ring at:

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That is surely beyond reasonable dispute. I'm not going to go through the detail of what a modern fighter can absolutely comfortably look on the scale, but it's nothing like that. To be clear, this is without "looking like a concentration camp victim". This is without "sawing his leg off". This is without "hurting himself so badly he wouldn't be able to perform." Just normal, normal for modern weight-making and science.

I absolutely concede that it is possible Sharkey would be a part of a tiny minority who, for whatever bizarre reason of body mechanics may not be able to lose this weight. I absolutely concede that he may hate exchanging baked potatoes for green salads so much that he might decide to be one of the minuscule minority that try to gain rather than lose weight. But the overwhelming likelihood is that neither of these things are true.

Now, assuming we all agree Sharkey is good enough to establish a career and win a strap at 175lbs today, what is his next move? Let's look at all the lineal light-heavyweights of the century to see how they handled it.

1997-2003 Dariusz Michalczewski. Slightly taller than Jack, fought one fight at CW weighing 180lbs.
2003-2004 Julio Cesar Gonzalez. Much taller and longer than Jack, fought three fights at CW, lost two, one a single 8 rounder.189lbs roof.
2004-2009 Zsolt Erdei. Smaller than Jack. No cruiserweight fights.
2010-2011 Jean Pascal. Smaller than jack. A couple of over-the-weight matches (181lbs).
2011-2012 Beranrd Hopkins. Taller and longer than Jack. No CW matches.
2012-2013 Adonis Stevenson. Smaller than Jack. No CW matches.
2018-2019 Oleksandr Gvozdyk. Taller and longer than Jack. No CW matches.
2019- Artur Beterbiev. The same size as Jack. No CW matches.

So, would Sharkey storm the barricades at CW and HW? First, let me say that with discipline and a title to defend, I dont' think Sharkey has any problems making the 175lbs weight limit throughout his career. Controlled body development is a part of the sport and even guy like Ricky Hatton can train for it but most fighters also eat for it. But anything can happen. Maybe he's a failure who sees an opportunity at CW; maybe he gets beat for his title and in a rematch and sees CW as the only viable option. Maybe he turns into a p4p great and HW seems a reasonable proposition. Who knows?

But on balance the most likely thing that would occur is that like these men, his absolute peers in size and shape, he remains, for the most part, at 175lbs.

Nobody knows the answer though. Nobody knows enough about Sharkey's bone-density, proclivities, strengths and weaknesses, discipline under weight-making or what his relationship would be with his trainers to say absolutely what would occur. What we can say though, is that men his size rarely do much at cruiserweight and almost universally do nothing at HW in this century.

 

Heavyweights probably still do make the most money on average. But they aren't the biggest earners in the sport any more. Those days are over for the moment and may remain so.

Furthermore, you don't make a lot of money getting knocked about. Sharkey is less than six feet tall with a 72" reach. The next smallest man around the current HW top ten is probably Michael Hunter - 6'2/225/80 inch reach. Sharkey would be absolutely dwarfed by him in the ring.

 

Hunter is a "weight class" bigger than Sharkey.

I don't mean a literal weight class. I know and understand that 205lb Sharkey and 225lb Hunter are the same weight class under boxing's rules. But he is considerably bigger.

I withdraw the word "dwarfed".

Michael Hunter, this smallest man in or around the HW top ten currently is, at his biggest, 20lbs heavier than Sharkey at his biggest, listed as 2.5 inches taller listed with a prohibitive 7.5 inches advantage in reach. My personal interpretation of this size difference is that it represents a size advantage that matters over the smallest man Sharkey may meaningfully fight and Sharkey himself, were he transported to the future in a time machine to pursue a career as a professional boxer.

 

literally minutes after questioning why we would imagine him as anything different to what he was?