Which is the Worst Division in Boxing at the Moment?

First topic message reminder :

Which dvision do people think has the worst quality in it?

If you want to be big in boxing whether people like it or not, you go to America,its the Mecca of the boxing world,that's why,Lewis, Hatton,Benn have fought there and why Khan is fighting there. Regardless of how good you are, you've got to go to the USA if you want to make it big on the world scene.

Absolutely gman....sensible stuff as usual...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZGfRX7C12w

I watched this episode the other day and immediately thought of Trussman

Cheers....Head isn't quite that big....

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:Cheers....Head isn't quite that big....

Your ego makes up for that fella.

Haven't got an ego....

Just a liberal minded guy looking for some tourism...

Guys there is no need to argue this thread is just about sharing opinions on boxing and seeing which is the wost divisin at the moment!

Waingro wrote:Guys there is no need to argue this thread is just about sharing opinions on boxing and seeing which is the wost divisin at the moment!

Well said pal

would you put me in there truss or have i crossed you too many times?

i tend to find with boxing these days its much easier to try and find the few good divisions than all the bad ones. welter and super mid being the rare ones with abit of talent

There are way too many divisions. Even if 8 was deemed to low, 17 is ridiculous. It just waters down the quality everywhere. Some of those divisions are actually struggling to house a genuine world class fighter.

There should be more than 12 divisions and possibly as few as 10.

Got to agree Manos, really can't see the need for so many, as you have alluded to spreads the talent too thin which is already struggling with the numerous belts on offer. Ironically the one relatively recent division that makes sense is cruiser and traditionally it is a complete waste ground talent wise.

manos de piedra wrote:There are way too many divisions. Even if 8 was deemed to low, 17 is ridiculous. It just waters down the quality everywhere. Some of those divisions are actually struggling to house a genuine world class fighter.

There should be more than 12 divisions and possibly as few as 10.

The lower ones are the joke. I mean you can claim to be a "3 weight title holder" by moving from minweight to flyweight by jumping all of 7lbs.

Not sure how you get down from 17 to 12 though?

I'd take out all the junior classes between minweight and featherweight (so light fly, super fly, super bantam), which leaves 14.... Not sure where you could shift 2 more? I mean you could lose cruiser, but with todays day and age heavy being at least 210 i don't think a 'small' heavy who can't make 175 but would be dwarfed by every heavy (if they're around 190-200 etc) would be fair to take CW out

rowley wrote:Got to agree Manos, really can't see the need for so many, as you have alluded to spreads the talent too thin which is already struggling with the numerous belts on offer. Ironically the one relatively recent division that makes sense is cruiser and traditionally it is a complete waste ground talent wise.

I do think weight wise, especially nowadays when you have some huge heavyweights, there does need to be a division between light heavyweight and heavyweight in theory. But I think its will always struggle in practice with the stigma of being below the big one and above such a traditionally strong and prestigous division like light heavyweight. Think its just destined to be a graveyard.

Having 8 weight classes below lightweight is nonsenical though. 35 pounds seperating 8 divisions?

Looking at it now if I had to restructure I would reduce the number of divisions below lightweight to 4, instead of 8 and have 2 middleweight divisions instead of 3. That would leave 12 overall which I think is plenty.

Reborn-DeeMcK-Reborn wrote:Light Heavy for me.

When a 46 year old is considered the best in the division it surely sets off alarm bells. And a 24 year old supposed world champion who struggles with a below standard domestic fighter. Not in the best of health at this present time.

Don't know how you could vote for LHW. Hopkins may be 46, but he's exceptional. He out-hustled Pascal because Pascal is more of an athlete than a technical boxer. But, other than Hopkins and Pascal, you have an excellent boxer in Dawson, you have a decent belt holder in Cloud. There are decent fighters on the fringes: Cleverly, Erdei, Sillakh. I'd be excited to watch any combination of those guys fight.

Manos

Would you play around with the weights though? You've got WW @ 147 (obviously, just hang with me), so if you took out a MW division you'd have to find 21lbs for 2 divisions....

So, middlweight would become 157lbs and super middle stays @ 168lbs?

Personally it makes sense to just take out light/super fly and super bantam. Super feather has just way too much history attached to it to go.

The rest seem sensible, with the money on offer today you'd get big LWWs trying to trim down to 135 rather than go up... Which i'd view as potentially dangerous, but that's just my two cents worth.

I agree with the points about Cruiserweight; ironic that it's traditionally been just about the poorest division of the lot, and yet the introduction of it made perfect sense, and makes even more sense in this day and age of 'Super Heavyweights.'

If it were down to me, I'd scrap Strawweight, Light-Flyweight, and Super-Flyweight for sure. Super-Bantamweight, perhaps. The gaps from there up to Light-Welterweight are all relatively small, but the quality of the divisions means they really need to remain. So I reckon I'd have a hard time cutting it down to anything less than fourteen or at a stretch thirteen divisions.

Historically speaking, Super-Middleweight hasn't been all that, but right now it's buzzing and a jump from Middleweight at 160 lb and Light-Heavyweight at 175 lb is considerable, so it's another additional division which makes sense.

Thing is, Chris, that if there were no super-middleweight division, the light-heavyweights would be buzzing instead. Historically, 175 has been just about the premier division for quality in boxing history. I'm prepared to bet that this would not have been the case if 168 had been diluting it for 100 years.

No, I'm in the root and branch reform camp, I'm afraid. Nine divisions only - perhaps rename cruiserweight heavyweight and call the big guys super-heavyweight as a somewhat artificial route to gaining a bit of credibility for the 200 lb men. Regardless of the fact that super-feather and light-welter have been home to some great fighters, they send out the wrong signal. Great fighters at super-feather and light-welter have generally been great fighters at light and welter as well (I realise that there are exceptions), and the depth in each of the nine divisions would be immeasurably improved if you were to remove the in-between categories. A bit of weight discipline for fighters would be necessary as well, which wouldn't hurt.

coxy0001 wrote:Manos

Would you play around with the weights though? You've got WW @ 147 (obviously, just hang with me), so if you took out a MW division you'd have to find 21lbs for 2 divisions....

So, middlweight would become 157lbs and super middle stays @ 168lbs?

Personally it makes sense to just take out light/super fly and super bantam. Super feather has just way too much history attached to it to go.

The rest seem sensible, with the money on offer today you'd get big LWWs trying to trim down to 135 rather than go up... Which i'd view as potentially dangerous, but that's just my two cents worth.

How about make Middlewieght 155 and Super Middleweight 165?

That way its WW 147, MW 155, SMW 165, LH 175.

It might ruffle the feathers of traditionalists though to see the Middleweight division altered slightly but I would prefer that than the alternative of three Middleweight classes.

I'm prepared to bet that this would not have been the case if 168 had been diluting it for 100 years.

So they've got to jump 17lbs? That seems rather alot

Don't see a problem with super middle, it's one of the best divisions around at present and once a few of the guys move up light heavy will be completely stacked as well.

And correct me if i'm wrong, but hasn't SMW only been around since 1970 or so?

Got to say I am with the captain on this one, worth remembering we also have day before weigh ins nowadays so the opportunity to cut and rehydrate to a more natural weight is a lot easier than it previously was. For me too many divisions is making things that in the past were exceptional such as winning belts in multiple divisions way too easy. If you got rid of super middle do you think Jones would not have been able to make the leap to light heavy? Ditto with light welter would guess Floyd could still have made the leap to welter.

The reason for this is they are exceptional talents, leaping and succeeding across multiple weight classes should be something that marks the exceptional out from good or very good, as it was many years ago. Go back far enough and the only guys to succeed across three weight classes were the likes of Armstrong and Fitzsimmons, absolute legends of the game, nowadays Duke McKensie does it.

Only since 1984 among the current leading boxing organisations, coxy. I would keep the divisional weights as they are - 15lbs from middle to light-heavy is quite a lot, but it's not supposed to be easy. Fighters wishing to move from 160 to 175 would have to put in a good bit of work to reach the required strength to prosper in the higher division. Men such as Robinson (almost) and Tiger proved that you could actually jump from one to the other and do well in pretty short order.

The "problem" with super middle is that it simply isn't necessary. Once the cream moves up to light-heavy, if they do, you are left with a denuded division at 168. Far better to have a continuously churning, buzzing and meaningful 175 lb division, which has such a glorious history, but which for large stretches of the past 25 years, has been a shadow of what it was up until the mid-1980s.

Most of the divisions in the current format will peak and trough, so in terms of potential reform I think much would depend on how traditionalist you are. Light heavy and Middleweight, for instance, are traditionally two very strong divisions but at present are both arguably overshadowed by Super Middleweight in terms of quality in strength and depth.

Jeff is absolutely right, in my view. Triple weight champions should mark out the truly exceptional in the game, not the decent, ie men such as McKenzie, Barkley, Cotto and Kameda. We can say as we look back that someone like Hearns could have been a bona fide triple weight champion, so perhaps could Leonard and so could Pacquiao and possibly Mayweather and Jones. That is at it should be. Not a dud name among them. World titles should not be handed out to all-comers.

I like manos' idea, sacrilege to purists of course, of maybe dropping middleweight maybe a few pounds. I'd rather see the back of light-middle than super-middle.


Middle's been in the doldrums for years, light-middle throws up a good fight once in a blue moon, but super-middle goes from strength to strength, consistently producing good fights and fighters.


The division seems to suit a certain body type, and with respect to everyone on this thread, I would argue that, while I'd like to see as few divisions as possible, the sport would be poorer without the super- middleweight division.

One thing though, I think the division should change it's name, super- middle sound like it's middleweight's poor cousin, just as light-middle does.


Stellarweight- there you go.