You hear so much wwhining and complaining at the lighter weights about a fight being unfair becasue of a 5 or 7lb weight difference and yet in the heavyweight division its ok guys like Lennox Lewis or Wladimir Klitschko to have 3 or 4 inches in height and 20-30lbs in weight over their oponents. Why is that?
The HW division needs to be revamped for today's boxers. Back in the day, 215-220 was huge. Now, it's like being a "light" HW. Need to split the division like this to make it more fair: >215 Junior HW 216-230 Mid HW 231-245 HW 245-260 Executive HW 260> FatWeight
To be fair a lot of todays "big" heavyweights would only weigh about the same as the likes of Liston, Ali and Foreman if they weren't fat.
Remember that extra weight can actually be a disadvantage too. 20 to 30 lbs of fat is certainly going to have a detrimental effect on a fighter, for example Chris Arreola is about 30 lbs heavier than David Haye but if the two were to meet then you consider Hayes lighter weight as an advantage. Also these big muscle bound guys with bodybuilder type physics tend to have stamina issues, Frank Bruno had a very muscular physic and outweighed Tyson by about 20 to 30 lbs, he also outweighed Lewis when they fought, but all that muscle seemed to slow him down and drain his energy the longer a fight went on. Guys like the Klitschko's and Lewis who are huge, lean, fast and skillful are still something of a rarity, and probably always will.
At those lighter weights, especially the fights that you hear complaining about, usually means one of the fighters has to bust their ass to make weight..Heavyweights dont have to make weight.
well size does matter (see wlad vs chag and sultan for instance) to a degree in hw division (not that they would beat wlad if they were close to the same size), but it's all relative. a 20lb weight differential with guys 220 plus is probably similar to a 10 lb difference with 150 lb fighters. all that said there's way too many weight disivisions in the lower categories.
Usually smaller Heavyweights are faster. For instance, the smaller Mike Tyson would still be at the very pinnacle of the sport today, regardless of some of the giants fighting now. Skills pay the bills, when it comes down to it.
What Im tryna say is that people swear up and down that its unfair for a guy at 140 to fight a guy at 147, but there no complaining about a guy 250 fighting a guy 220.
Last thing we need in boxing is more divisions, we need less divisions. We also need less trinkets. I feel just the opposite of this post. The whole, catchweight thing is silly and a modern way of playing the negotiation game which has ruined boxing and doesnt allow the top fighters to fight each other.
IMO, the HW division is for big men, guys over 6'2 and large frames. What is happening today is that a lot of fat, obese, crappy fighters are at the division bc they don't want to live as athletes. Most of today's HWs, if fit, would be fighting at 168-175, or at least at the CW division. 200lbs is already a lot of wheight for a 6'0 athlete. If the fighter doesn't want to help his chances then neither the rules or the public should worry about it. There is also the HW division money that comes into major play when fighters opt which division to go pro.
B/c at that weight "USUALLY" they have the kind of size and power to end a fight in one shot. It's always an advantage to have size, power and strength over your oppoent but in the HW division most of the guys are BIG and Powerful enough to end it in one shot....if you aren't then you have got to be a very good boxer with a good beard.
Its because, truth of the matter is, the weight classes are bull****. Five pounds, seven pounds, hell even ten pounds, isnt going to make a world of ****ing difference. IMO, the future of boxing is in catchweight competitions.