If the Cruiserweight Division didn't exist...

[LoadedWraps]

Fury is one those "giants" but he can't break an egg!

The Heavyweight division has NO Weight Limitations!
It is an OPEN division, as it should be!
Mike Tyson at barely 5'10" and 210lbs would competitive against any heavyweight. Why? Because he can punch!!!
If Fury had power he would be very dangerous against smaller men. If Wlad had multiple options in the skills department he wouldn't have been KO'd by nobodies!

Styles make fights is a very true statement but POWER is the equalizer when dealing with size and skills advantages.
Dempsey could bring it and if you think a 250 pound can't be hurt by a 190 lbs. puncher you've never fought anyone with real power!

Lots of men through the years have given up 25 to 55 pounds and have competed, get over the height & weight thing will you! It's only an advantage if you know how to use
it. Fury against Tyson would be a beautiful match up, Fury would be forced to learn to clinch very quickly or he'd get hurt bad!

Ray

I disagree about Fury, but I agree with everything else you say here. Good post.

[Redd Foxx]

That's not always how it works, for one. And two, the HW division has always been that way, so you must have had a problem with it the whole time. I say keep it the way it is. I love that aspect of the division personally. Either cut weight, or put on muscle, or become faster and improve your defense. No excuses.

It's an age old saying for good reason.

Yes, I've always felt HW was unbalanced and smaller, talented guys were always going to have a harder time. It's foolish to think that a 225lb fighter with A level talents is every bit as capable as a 265lb man with equal talents. I feel like I'm in that NSB dimension as I explain this. Where common principles are no longer recognised and we play in hypothetical fantasies. Let's stick to logic here.

If you like that imbalance, good for you. Don't pretend it doesn't exist or that I am supposed to like it.
If we took away MW and JMW and told everyone to cut weight or adapt, would that be well received? No, because it's ******. Most fans are OK with HW being a broad field because sometimes there's barely enough talent to keep it interesting, and mostly because they've always known it that way and people don't like change.

[LoadedWraps]

It's an age old saying for good reason.

Yes, I've always felt HW was unbalanced and smaller, talented guys were always going to have a harder time. It's foolish to think that a 225lb fighter with A level talents is every bit as capable as a 265lb man with equal talents. I feel like I'm in that NSB dimension as I explain this. Where common principles are no longer recognised and we play in hypothetical fantasies. Let's stick to logic here.

If you like that imbalance, good for you. Don't pretend it doesn't exist or that I am supposed to like it.
If we took away MW and JMW and told everyone to cut weight or adapt, would that be well received? No, because it's ******. Most fans are OK with HW being a broad field because sometimes there's barely enough talent to keep it interesting, and mostly because they've always known it that way and people don't like change.

And there's no real good reason to change it, and as Ray explains in here, smaller fighters can still win. You don't like it as a fighter? Don't box in the division.

[boliodogs]

Cruiserweight was created for guys who couldn't quite make 175 and didn't want to fight guys who were rock hard at 220 pounds. The division made some sense then. Then they raised the limit up to 200 pounds with weigh ins the day before the fight. Cruiserweights now often were 220 rock hard pounds themselves on fight night. Just about every cruiserweight champ soon fights at heavyweight anyway. Under today's rules and weight limits it's kind of a useless division. It's sort of a proving ground for future heavyweights. I am not saying there aren't some damn good cruiserweights but most of them turn heavyweight if they are good because heavyweight is where the money is at.

[boliodogs]

I forgot to say the original cruiserweight limit was 190 pounds on the morning or early afternoon of the fight.

[Scipio2009]

The division's been around since the 80s and has never gotten a lot of respect, despite producing some quality scraps. Never the less, what if we had light heavyweight(175) and everything over is heavyweight like in the old days?

Obviously you'd think the smaller guys would be crushed by the giants that rule the heavyweight division as is. However, when you take into account Jack Dempsey who was barely a heavyweight, crushing than big heavyweight Jess Willard, it doesn't seem so black and white anymore.

The point is over all, that Marciano fought well below 200 pounds because it was his best fighting weight. How many of these smaller, but faster, cruisers could do damage at heavyweight while weighing well below 200, even against the big boys?

Jess Willard was basically the Nikolai Valuev of his day; you add that he made all of one title defense, before then getting the **** beat out of him by a 180lb fight and Willard isn't really all that much of a standard-bearer.

And, in bringing up Jack Dempsey, you've kind of answered your own question; you look at the fighters that Dempsey fought, and it's clear that he was always matched against fighters his size or smaller.

The simple reality is that size matters, especially in the age of bigger and bigger men coming to boxing with full coordination.

If 175 was truly the last weight class, you'd end up with a lot of talented fighters who are simply too small to compete at the title level at heavyweight. And then you'd have a handful of guys (Holyfield, Haye, Huck, etc) who were elite enough talents to be competitive against the right guys.

[billeau2]

Fury is one those "giants" but he can't break an egg!

The Heavyweight division has NO Weight Limitations!
It is an OPEN division, as it should be!
Mike Tyson at barely 5'10" and 210lbs would competitive against any heavyweight. Why? Because he can punch!!!
If Fury had power he would be very dangerous against smaller men. If Wlad had multiple options in the skills department he wouldn't have been KO'd by nobodies!

Styles make fights is a very true statement but POWER is the equalizer when dealing with size and skills advantages.
Dempsey could bring it and if you think a 250 pound can't be hurt by a 190 lbs. puncher you've never fought anyone with real power!

Lots of men through the years have given up 25 to 55 pounds and have competed, get over the height & weight thing will you! It's only an advantage if you know how to use
it. Fury against Tyson would be a beautiful match up, Fury would be forced to learn to clinch very quickly or he'd get hurt bad!

Ray

History bares this out. Even today an enterprising cruiser, say a fellow like Hollyfield can clean up that division relatively easily and fight heavyweight. Many of the best punchers are smaller heavyweights. Take a guy like David Haye.

One would think the main problem for a smaller man would be the power of a larger man and that has not been the situation. Sure there are exceptions to this...Herbie got Hided by the likes of big Rid**** Bowe, but most times smaller heavyweights can punch. Even light heavies like Foster, Spinks and both (michael and Archie) Moore seldom had problems because of power. Foster did a number on Quarry, Spinks lost big to Tyson the way everybody else was and Archie's worse nemisis at heavyweight was a relatively small heavy by the name of Marciano. Michael Moore won a championship.

The proof is in the pudding and I think Ray speaks the pudding!

[LoadedWraps]

History bares this out. Even today an enterprising cruiser, say a fellow like Hollyfield can clean up that division relatively easily and fight heavyweight. Many of the best punchers are smaller heavyweights. Take a guy like David Haye.

One would think the main problem for a smaller man would be the power of a larger man and that has not been the situation. Sure there are exceptions to this...Herbie got Hided by the likes of big Rid**** Bowe, but most times smaller heavyweights can punch. Even light heavies like Foster, Spinks and both (michael and Archie) Moore seldom had problems because of power. Foster did a number on Quarry, Spinks lost big to Tyson the way everybody else was and Archie's worse nemisis at heavyweight was a relatively small heavy by the name of Marciano. Michael Moore won a championship.

The proof is in the pudding and I think Ray speaks the pudding!

[billeau2]

It's an age old saying for good reason.

Yes, I've always felt HW was unbalanced and smaller, talented guys were always going to have a harder time. It's foolish to think that a 225lb fighter with A level talents is every bit as capable as a 265lb man with equal talents. I feel like I'm in that NSB dimension as I explain this. Where common principles are no longer recognised and we play in hypothetical fantasies. Let's stick to logic here.

If you like that imbalance, good for you. Don't pretend it doesn't exist or that I am supposed to like it.
If we took away MW and JMW and told everyone to cut weight or adapt, would that be well received? No, because it's ******. Most fans are OK with HW being a broad field because sometimes there's barely enough talent to keep it interesting, and mostly because they've always known it that way and people don't like change.

Sometimes reality is not really logical, when we deal with hypotheticals. Yes, all being equal? logically a man who is bigger will be better. In reality? there appears to be a reason why a good heavyweight chiseled out of Plato's archetype for the perfect specimen is seldom larger than twenty pounds or so north of 200 pounds.

Apparently when guys get bigger they lose certain attributes. So for example, as good as Lennox Lewis was he could be a Klutz and never had the footwork of a guy like Louis. There appears to be certain advantages in reality for an ambush fighter like David Haye, to be on the smaller side because it gives him speed and a trade off with punching attributes.

The Bowe Holyfield trilogy is a great example of this trade off: When Holy won he boxed, and used his quickness, when Bowe won he used is size and strength.

Yet Red I don't know if we actually disagree...You might feel as though, even if bigger is not better, you would like the parity of the weight classes? Either way I question if a bigger man will ever be equal in every other sense to a smaller more coordinated man, provided we are dealing with a base weight of an average heavyweight.

[LoadedWraps]

Sometimes reality is not really logical, when we deal with hypotheticals. Yes, all being equal? logically a man who is bigger will be better. In reality? there appears to be a reason why a good heavyweight chiseled out of Plato's archetype for the perfect specimen is seldom larger than twenty pounds or so north of 200 pounds.

Apparently when guys get bigger they lose certain attributes. So for example, as good as Lennox Lewis was he could be a Klutz and never had the footwork of a guy like Louis. There appears to be certain advantages in reality for an ambush fighter like David Haye, to be on the smaller side because it gives him speed and a trade off with punching attributes.

The Bowe Holyfield trilogy is a great example of this trade off: When Holy won he boxed, and used his quickness, when Bowe won he used is size and strength.

Yet Red I don't know if we actually disagree...You might feel as though, even if bigger is not better, you would like the parity of the weight classes? Either way I question if a bigger man will ever be equal in every other sense to a smaller more coordinated man, provided we are dealing with a base weight of an average heavyweight.

That's what makes Fury so exciting to me, is doesn't really lose much and he is so big. He moves so well and has great reflexes and a good engine for his size, and he can use his reach because he has an educated jab.

Some try and say he has no power, but as RJJ said during the Wlad fight, big men hit hard period because of their size and the force they can produce.