Comments Thread For: Ismayl Sillakh Heading Up To Cruiserweight Ranks

[takingaim]

He's moving up because there's no way he can get down to 168 without killing himself.

[uncommon]

After Kovalev Krushes Stevenson, he'll either go down on the 168 pounders or bend over for the 200 Spartans.

[#1Assassin]

Kovalev and Stevenson are chasing guys out of LHW one by one.

to be fair bellew and sillakh are both massive 175lbers who struggled to make the weight. bellew fought at heavyweight as an ameteur and sillakh fought at cruiser before as a pro.

cleverly just dont want none.

[#1Assassin]

Can Bellew join the party? Or is it only Kovalevs victims?

Actually TBF at least Sillakh was already on his way up to cruiser - 2 fights before Kovalev he weghed in at 198, but he started coming back down again when the Kovalev fight first became a possibility back around May or June '13.

I can understand that all 3 guys are tall for LHWs, but why does getting KTFO at 175 make them think they'll take the bigger punchers at CW?

they will have more stamina, strength and punch resistance when they wont have to drain their bodies to make the 175lb limit. punch resistance is dramatically decreased by cutting too much weight, fighters often take punches better after moving up when thats been the case at the lower weight.

all you have to do is look at bellew and sillakh and you can tell they dont make that weight easily. i dont know exactly how much weight bellew cut but word is sillakh cut 20lbs in a week. that will have a drastic effect on your ability to absorb punches. there are fluids in your skull in which your brain floats around, when you get dehydrated it is decreased and so is the amount of shock resistance for your brain.

dont get me wrong, they would both have lost regardless of the weight, they just arent good enough to do otherwise. but in truth they probably both should have moved up already regardless of stevenson and kovalev.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Damn,, all these lhw fighters running from the division,, cleverly, bellew, and now sillakh


Some decent matchups for them,, Sad thing is, they are probably the best known cruisers now besides huck, lebedev, and Yuan Pablo

[richardt]

These guys are finding 168-175 a little too thick for them. He was at 168 recently and now he cant even make 175??? Something wrong with his training or discipline.

[SthPaw]

Strange to have several LHW fighters recently contemplate a move up in weight to CW.

[Citizen Koba]

I don't think his career will have much success. he never got back on the winning track in lhw, got schooled there. looked like a ****** with all his hype and now cw. watch him call out klits after being koed few times in cw

Sorry thing is that Ismail's a fantastic boxer...but he doesn't like pressure (AKA 'getting hit'). As long as he can keep it his fight he beats almost anyone, but when somone gets in his face he folds. The CWs he gets in the ring with will have seen his fights and anyone worth fighting will exploit it.

Don't get me wrong, Sillakh can still beat a lot of the guys out there, but it's hard to see him succeeding at the highest level now. Ditto Clev and Bellew FWIW - in fact, amongst the three Sillakh is the one I could see doing best.

[Sparked_26]

Clev moving up is the most ill advised move as he can't punch at the top level.

I can't see what the harm is in him remaining at light heavy. So he can't beat Kovalev? I don't know why that would mean he has to vacate the division.

If he fought that Makumbu it would have been career suicide and he would have been KO'd.

Bellew is different. He used to be a legitimate puncher as an amateur. It disappeared a little as a pro. He might as well have a look to see what's possible at the higher weight.

[ShoulderRoll]

Grachev was the first one to derail the Sillakh hype train.