The Coward weight class?

Really good thread. But sometimes fighters that are comfortable in their weight class do not need to move up. It would be like calling Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Carlos Monzon a coward because they did not have the inkling to move up, they were not having trouble making weight. I think it is a champion's prerogative to do so, not the fans or promoters. Sometimes it benefits the fighter and sometimes not. Greed can be a bad thing.

 

Probably 155.

 

BY FAR.

 

The catchweight at 152 ?

 

Canelo waiting at 154 and 155lbs for Golovkin to get old

 

Historically guys, especially nowadays, love lurking around 140 and 154 to avoid the shark infested waters of 147 and 160.

 

Not calling anyone a coward but I always thought it was a pity that Terry Norris didn’t make the jump from 154 to 160 during the early 90s. Middleweight was stacked at that time with Toney, McCallum, Benn, Eubank, RJJ and Julian Jackson all competing at that time. Norris added to the mix would’ve been another talented and potentially great component. 154 to 160 isn’t really that big of a jump. But he seemed happier to fight some less than stellar opposition or small guys coming up in weight at Jnr middle.

 

Junior Welter and Junior Middle are somewhere to hide rather going into the deep end at Welter and Middle.

 

But isn’t that what great fighters are supposed to do?... Challenge themselves and look for the toughest fights?... That’s what Henry Armstrong did

 

Armstrong was a real champion-

 

With all due respect, not necessarily, if you choose to do that it is one thing, Henry Armstrong, great fighter, but again if you are comfortable at your respective weight and look to clean out your division, that can also be a great thing. It is kind of like seeking out the biggest baddest school bully when you are young, he may have several advantages, why? Everyone should want to be themselves, not be like somebody else. As I said, greed can be a bad thing, as long as you are comfortable, that is far more important. I respect a fighter more to say no to climbing up to fight a bigger man than himself, it shows moxie, I thought that guys like Hagler and Monzon were great enough for not wanting to jump to another weight, they were great at their weight class. They knew their limitations. Gaining excess weight is not healthy either, especially after you retire, bad for the heart. Besides, what hypothetical matches could there be without imagining them?

 

Just gonna say, 155lb.

 

First of all, let's just eliminate Hagler and Monzon from this discussion - as they don't fit at all as the middleweight division obviously wasn't a division to hide in, particularly as the super middleweight division didn't exist back then.

Secondly, I was a big Norris fan back in the 90s from the point he beat Ray Leonard up until his KO loss to Simon Brown. Now, in his defense, Norris was probably a guy who would have been a small middleweight back in the 50s in the pre-junior middleweight days and so 154 was just a good fit for him in that he didn't have to struggle to make weight or put himself at a disadvantage - nothing inherently wrong with that.

But... I also feel had there been no junior middleweight division, he probably would have tried to make welterweight rather than fight at a size disadvantage at middleweight.

I remember back in 1993 before the Brown fight everyone was hoping he'd join the middleweight mix. But I think KO or The Ring put it well when they were discussing potential matchups with the middleweight titlists of the time, WBC champ Gerald McClellan, WBA champ John David Jackson and IBF champ Roy Jones. They said something like 'McClellan is too strong, Jackson is too cute and Jones is too strong and too cute.'

 

Ricardo Lopez staying at 105/108 rather proving his pound for pound credentials with his main rivals at the time: Chavez, Whitaker or indeed, Holyfield...


Seriously though, I cannot think of many, if any examples. Norris for instance could make the same money fighting blown up Welterweights, there was no need for him to move to Middle.