Heavyweight decline is a good thing

I've been thinking about this for the past few days. Although in general, the public get captured by the power of the heavyweights, their recent decline has opened up parts of the sport to people who previously had no interest in the lower divisions.

Granted, at it's best, the HW division is amazing due to the speed with which a fight can be turned on it's head, but even that sometimes does not make up for the slow plodding approach of many of the division's recent champions. Poor conditioning is no excuse when you are a paid athlete looking to make a career. The lack of an upper weight limit has eventually lead to this laziness. Don't get me wrong, capping the heavies is not an option, but the attitude of alot of fighters makes them hard to watch.

This brings me on to Haye, the only Heavy I have any interest in at the minute. The reason is simple, he respects his body and the fact that he gets paid to fight. He turns up in great shape and has a go. He can bang and he's not afraid to lose.

The one saving grace with the decline of the heavies is the ever weakening presence of Don King as a face of boxing.

Now that the attention has firmly shifted, we are getting some great fights that are marketed properly and provide a great income for the previously relatively underpaid lower weight classes. The public are beginning to appreciate that the real skill is below HW. The best boxers in our generation have been occupying the lower divisions and many completely unheralded.

I have to give credit to ODLH for alot of this. He has given the boxers a much fairer slice of the pie than promoters of old and is still well on his game. Sure, his fights with Flloyd and Manny to come were weighed in his favour, but that is not the point. He makes fights happen and his marketing strategy generates genuine public interest in these fights in a way we have rarely seen since the eighties.

If proof is in the pudding, Vasquez-Marquez 3 for me summed it up. Even my work colleague who has no interest in th sport made an effort to watch this after me raving about the first two fights. He watched them before fight 3 and is now a boxing convert.

Good post, you make some good points and I'm with you on a lot of them;)

I respect what you're saying but I have to disagree. I've gotten into the lower weight classes because there were good fights there and not because the heavies were down and out. You said yourself you raved to your friend about the first 2 Vazquez-Marquez fights and that was probably why he became a convert, not because the 200+ pounders weren't doing anything. The only the boxing's top division being the least entertaining has done is given us, the hardcore fans, fewer good fights to watch. The casual fan isn't going to watch the little guys either way if one of the fighters isn't named Ali or Tyson, but when you had those guys at least the little guys stood a chance of being watched if they were on a televised undercard. The heavyweight decline isn't a good thing. Not at all. When the good-looking girl wants to go home, the fat ugly one has no choice but to leave.

Dont think Haye has filled out too badly:


http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ttlelarge2.jpg

You are buying into the Haye hype machine. There are plenty of fighters who respect their bodies. Klitschko is always in great condition and while he may not hang his chin out there for anybody to knock on, he knocks out guys more often than not, including his last half dozen or so opponents. And there could be an upper limit. I for one wouldn't mind seeing a super heavyweight division if the talent were there. If it started at 250lbs it could have some decent names in it and give some of these guys something to worry about if their suddenly in the lower end instead of the upper end of the division. You'd see a lot of guys starving themselves down to stay in the HW division.

haye looks like hes in better shape at HW than he was at cruiser

Man his neck looks pretty damn big now. fair points Killface, my influence definitely encouraged my mate, but even still, the fights that people want to see are starting to happen again. Less bull and legality and more actual boxing.