Is The Middleweight Division The Worst It's Ever Been ?

Where have you gone, Caveman Lee, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you...

 

It is. It's been going downhill since at least the turn of the century, and it's been getting worse ever since. It was historically weak in Hopkin's time, solid overall but not compared to past eras, it got even worse during GGG's prime years, but it still had some semblance of talent, and now it's arguably the biggest wasteland in the sport. It's a huge shame, since it's at least in the top 3 most stacked divisions historically.

Compare the last 30 years to the 30's-50's Middleweight scene, and it's not even a competition. The guys that were campaigning at the division during that time frame were Sugar Ray Robinson, Freddie Steele, Archie Moore, Ezzard Charles, Holman Williams, Jake LaMotta, Charley Burley, Young Corbett III, Lou Brouillard, Marcel Cerdan, Rocky Graziano, Tony Zale, Billy Conn, Cocoa Kid, Jack Chase, Bert Lytell, Fred Apostoli, Vince Dundee, Solly Krieger, Ken Overlin and Teddy Yarosz.

One look at those fighters and what each of them did, and you'd swear Middleweight is the deepest division ever. Now, it's arguably the most shallow in Boxing.

 

Ask the question to the nuts who claim that todays’s athletes/fighters are superior to the guys of the past.

The fans who say:

“Today’s guys are the best ever”

“The sport progresses each decade, and the guys from years ago couldn’t compete”

Go and ask:

@ertwin and the rest of those jokers.

 

Yes it's a waste land

 

Totally agree it's bad.

 

And if you subtract 15 lbs for weight cutting, WW isn't blowing my mind either.

We have 17(almost 18) divisions, 4 (almost 5) belts, and two lineal rankings. Or to put it this way, you could come up with 30-40 unique names in each of the 17(18) divisional rankings, and could probably scrape up a handful of stand out names in the entire sport.

Not every era has to be a golden age but the sport isn't doing to well at the moment. Hopefully things will get better.

Edit: Wrong number of divisions.

 

you're not wrong...seems like it's not currently a comfortable resting spot for most of the best up and comers. might just be an economic thing. everybody wants to get to 168 to get a canelo payday but that's coming to an end. next gen might conceivably coalesce there.

 

17 weight divisions (18 if you count Bridgerweight which no one does).
Lineal seems to really only matter in the HW division and really, it doesn't.
People should stop mentioning that.
And The Ring belt should be discarded too or be more relevant. Seems like you only see them around when it's a star fighting.

17 weight classes.
4 belts per weight class.
68 Championships in the sport.

I'm actually fine with that. Makes being undisputed a more cherished event. Having one champion per weight class would be easier, but I'm still fine with 4 belts.

 

I agree. When Canelo was a middleweight, Charlo, Derevyanchenko, Jacobs stayed all at 160 (and there was a bunch of high level fighters). Now they went all up in weigh (except for Charlo, but he will do it soon).
From 2017 to 2020 middlweight wasnt that bad.

 

Some of this has to do with the coverage on tv and how guys are being built up. Back in the 50's 60's,70's and 80's you had popular comentaters building guys up on regular tv, it didn't take much to become a household name, everybody heard your name. Today all the platforms on regular tv are all but gone, Just espn and maybe fox, and then apps.

 

i had to think about this for a minute. still not sure what i think about it. maybe...maybe easier to become a household name through tv, but you had to fight. a lot more than these guys do. and the gill clancys,howard coselles, jim lampleys and larry merchants of the world weren't overly concerned about angering a camp, because the fighters mostly needed them more than the networks needed the fighters.

today if you have a good line of bull**** you can social-media-clout your way to stardom and not have to fight much.

 

Is the middleweight division the worst it's been? Probably

 

One thing is certain, Jermall needs to be stripped. Having started off as big fans of the twins, they seemed to stop giving a f*ck once they got a little popular, acting like they were A-List stars. No title defense in what, ywo years and STILL coming in overweight? how the eff do you return from that long a layoff and miss weight by 3+ pounds??

 

It's pretty goddamn bad, I'll say that.