Is The Heavyweight Division Ready To Heat Up ?

[neverlast]

It may be soon that the boring heavyweight division will produce some fights that may actually be of interest to the fans. The boxing public is growing tired of contests like Maskaev-Othello, Klitschko-Austin and Ibragimov-Mora that were thrust upon the public as battles to supposedly determine who the best heavyweights in the world are today. Please...

Coming up in the near future should be the following battles ;

Nickolay Valuev-Ruslan Chagaev for the WBA heavyweight title.

Shannon Briggs-Sultan Ibragimov for the WBO heavyweight title.

Hopefully Wladimir Klitschko-Lamon Brewster II for the IBF heavyweight title.

Oleg Maskaev against either the deserving Sam Peter or former champion Vitali Klitschko for the WBC heavyweight title.

Well that is a start. Hopefully within the next six months we will have four men who claim a piece of the heavyweight crown and are willing to meet one another to determine who is the " undisputed " heavyweight champion of the world.

Another bout of interest that is being talked about is a match between former WBO titleholder Sergei Liakhovich and the fading but still capable James Toney. If it does come off the winner will be in a good position to challenge for one of the titles.

Where does this leave Evander Holyfield and another former champion on the outside looking in named Hassim Rahman ? Time will tell but by the end of 2007 the picture in the heavyweight division should become much clearer.

[Mishra100]

It isn't in the confusion that it was in when Wlad was getting knocked out then turning around and murdering people. At least the HW division has a solid #1 heavyweight at the moment. However I don't think it will be long until that turns right around again.

[paul750]

At least the HW division has a solid #1 heavyweight at the moment.

That's only opinion. There's four individual champions at the moment. There needs to be unification, it's the only way to clean up the division.

[Hitman932]

promotors, governing bodies and their politics are whats slowing the division down

there are plenty of solid fighters and interesting matchups to be made, they just never seem to happen

[Njord777]

No division stays down forever. If the middleweights are weak eventually some good crop comes in. Poor heavyweights? It'll change. Everything has a cyclical nature. It's only a matter of time before the division strengthens. I mean, Klitschko is not bad. Briggs is an exciting fighter despite his skill. There are guys out there. We just need young blood.

[Kball15]

considering how dull these fighters are, save peter and maskaev, its hard to ever see this division being exciting again. lol

But all it takes is for one more really exciting and talented guy to breathe some life into the division.

And there are already some good prospects. I say within 5 years, the heavyweight division is bigger and better, due to one great fighter that made his way up the ranks pretty quickly.

Perhaps he as just started his career.