Herbie Hide and the unloved division

Having jut re-watched Haye vs Chisora, I was reminded of one of the oft forgotten men of British boxing, Herbie Hide. The parallels with Haye were interesting for a start; both undersized heavyweights, both holding titles at heavyweight, both ultimately disappointing. What is even more interesting from my point of view is the contrast between the two of them and their cruiserweight careers. Haye made his name dominating the cruisers before moving up to face the big boys (and accrue more of the big bucks) whilst Hide chose to chance it at Heavyweight first and has since dropped down to Cruiserweight where he looks very natural. This set me wondering how Hide's career would have turned out had he chosen Cruiserweight as his first campaigning weight. Hide has always struck me as being reasonably talented, and at his more natural weight he could have hoped for significantly more success. I think this opens some interesting questions, the foremost for me being whether or not the cash lure of the Heavyweight division is keeping the Cruiserweight division weak by depriving it of borderline talents who decide to chance it as undersized heavy's.

He was too big to start out at cruiserweight, the limit at the time was 190lbs which would have been a push for him to make, were it always 200lbs he could have had a spell of dominance as he certainly had power and fair talent.

Thankyou Ghosty, that certainly explains the specific case of Hide for me. However, since Hide was an illustrative example anyway, what do you think of the question of fighter's chancing it at heavyweight rather than trying Cruiserweight first? There are a couple of examples I can think of who I think would be well capable of making the 200Ib limit but are drifting in the ranks of the big men instead, Mike Perez being one of them.

(I've changed the title as I believe that even without the example of Hide, the question of the cruiser/heavy is still a relevant one)

i think you missed the most obvious parallel. ringside... they're both complete tools.

Hide was talented and could bang, but its hard to get the memories of him getting starched by vk or his yoyo impression against bowe out of your mind, even if he did have the salad dodger wobbled a few times.

When I think of fighters who could have become great cruisers but ended up as forgettable heavy's, Chris Byrd immediately springs to mind. Won a silver at Middleweight at the 92 Olympics, had a couple of fights at super-middle/light-heavy, then immediately jumped to Heavy. He won a couple of titles but was no more than a paper champ. He had the skills to be a great lightheavy or cruiser, but the money and prestige lured him to Heavy, where he will be remembered as little more than a footnote in the divisions history. Sad really.

yeh byrd was decent but just too small for a modern heavy, lost to calzaghe as an amateur... Can't imagine JC getting in the ring with a klitschko. Similar path to moorer and toney, but jumped up to heavy quicker

Owen - I hate to be a drag but that italicised writing is a PAIN to read!

Anyway, Hide messed up a bit badly what with a r*** charge, getting a head injury and doing a Michael Barrymore. I see no reason why he couldn't have cleaned out the trash in this division and would love to have seen him spark Marco Huck. Nevermind.

How can a middleweight olympic medalist end up a career heavyweight?? Why not stay at duper middle/lightheavy? Although fair play for grabbing a few titles at heavy, especially with the big height/reach disadvantage he must have had to deal with.