What if fighters never went up and down i nweight to make big fights happen?

**rizkybizness** · 06-08-2009, 10:10 AM

exactly. if not for moving around in weight - we would never hear buffer say the following:

former middleweight world champion

former super middleweight world champion

former light heavyweight world champion

and former heavyweight champion of the woooooooooooooooooooooorld

roooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooy jooones juniorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

i get goosebumps just thinkin about roy's intro

**Little Killer** · 06-08-2009, 10:10 AM

Hagler.......

**larry x** · 06-08-2009, 10:18 AM

true,,history is filled with fighters moving up in weight and fighting other champions...when did catchweights start????did oscar invent it???

**Thread Stealer** · 06-08-2009, 01:42 PM

Originally posted by larrysmith

true,,history is filled with fighters moving up in weight and fighting other champions...when did catchweights start????did oscar invent it???

They've been around for a long time in boxing. An ESPN article a little while ago talked about one catchweight bout over 100 years ago.

Among more recent years, Leonard fought Lalonde and Hearns at catchweights. Technically you can argue that SRL-Lalonde wasn't a catchweight since 168 is a real division, but Lalonde was an 175 lb. champ and went down to 168 so the WBC would allow 2 divisional titles to be at stake at once. The Hearns rematch, for two super middleweight belts, was at 163. Whitaker-Chavez was at a catchweight of 145.

It does seem like there's been a real increase of them in the last couple of years.

**Pullcounter** · 06-08-2009, 02:10 PM

Originally posted by Kevin Jesus

If fighters don't ever go up and down in weight, we would have been missing a lot of historical fights. This **** is old, and back then nobody would say ****. Look at all of the big fights that have happened in the history of boxing. Duran's best years were at LW, what was he doing fighting a WW? what were the results?

Leonard going up in weight to fight Hagler at 160, although a close fight, what were the results for that fight?..De La Hoya vs Pacquiao, Hopkins vs Tarver, Adamek going up to CW. Mosley going from LW to 147 to fight Oscar, Trinidad vs Hopkins at 160 one of Hopkins' most memorable fights. Let's not forget Roy Jones Jr going from Light Heavy-weight to Heavyweight, and whooping Ruiz to a 12 round decision, and then going back down to Light Heavy and going to war with Tarver for his last performance as a prime Roy. And David Haye with just two wins over heavyweight bums, challenging Wladimir Klitschko, the best Heavyweight i nthe world.

Paul Williams, Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, Juan Manuel Marquez..All these guys are willing to make the biggest fights possible by any means necessary. Paul(147-160 even challenged Winky and Pavlik), Floyd(Fought Oscar at 154 a weight he has never been in before and being his 5th weight division) Manny(going up 7 weight classes and kicking ass all over the place), Juan Manuel Marquez(from 130, 135 Knocks out the two best lightweights that have never been knocked out before then moves up to 144 to fight the biggest fight of his career).

If fighters ALWAYS fight the fighters in their own division, what would be of our boxing history? if fighters don't take on challenges by going up and down in weight, would your favorite non-Heavyweight fighter be who he is now?

you're right, but boxers should know their limits. floyd knows he can't hang at 154 so he came back to 147.

pac knows he can't hang at 147 so he's back to 140.

jmm knows he can't hang at 147, so he'll go back down to 140 or 135.

it's ****** to demand fighters to go above a weight division that they have no business being in.

**Kevin Jesus** · 06-08-2009, 08:03 PM

Originally posted by Pullcounter

you're right, but boxers should know their limits. floyd knows he can't hang at 154 so he came back to 147.

pac knows he can't hang at 147 so he's back to 140.

jmm knows he can't hang at 147, so he'll go back down to 140 or 135.

it's ****** to demand fighters to go above a weight division that they have no business being in.

The whole point of this thread was to make an argument that it is okay to do that. Jones, from 175 all the way up to 201. He had no business being there, but if it's for one fight then who cares, plus he won.

**MANGLER** · 06-08-2009, 08:05 PM

Originally posted by Pullcounter

you're right, but boxers should know their limits. floyd knows he can't hang at 154 so he came back to 147.

pac knows he can't hang at 147 so he's back to 140.

jmm knows he can't hang at 147, so he'll go back down to 140 or 135.

it's ****** to demand fighters to go above a weight division that they have no business being in.

This. Goin all the way up is just fine. Fighters outgrow weight classes. But if you can't go all the way up, don't ****in bother.

**dans** · 06-08-2009, 08:12 PM

Going up in weight class is fine. Going up in weight class and refusing to fight the best at that weight class is not. That's why Mayweather gets criticized.

When Tito went up to 160, he fought Hopkins, not Kostya Tszyu.

**krispy kreme** · 06-08-2009, 08:20 PM

You sound like Bert Sugar.

What if fighters never went up and down i nweight to make big fights happen?