When the Heavyweight title was truly the greatest prize in sport the men who contested this fabled crown were not all that different from the common person. Taller maybe, more athletic and powerfully built certainly, but certainly not outlandishly so. Most of the great heavyweight fighters who thrilled crowds and created history between the inception of the gloved era and the reign of Mike Tyson in the 1980s weighed between 185 and 215 pounds.
Today the sadly splintered heavyweight crown is dominated by three giant athletes from Ukraine and Russia. The brothers Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko stand 6’6’’ and 6’7’’ tall respectively and weigh roughly 250 pounds. Their even more titanic counterpart Nikolai Valuev tips the scales at 320 pounds and stands 7’ tall. These men have all but cleaned out a division many see as dying on its feet. The Klitschko’s in particular bestride the division. Most of their recent fights have been little more than glorified sparring sessions, with one undersized opponent after another being pounded into defeat.
Yet is this dominance the product of their stellar talent or simply the fact that in a genetic battle they have come up trumps in nature’s lottery. With the very best of the current crop of heavyweight contenders’ so markedly handicapped by height and weight disadvantages has the time come to create a Super-Heavyweight division?
Time For a Change?
The first and possibly most pressing reason for the creation of a Super-Heavyweight division is to ensure that once more boxing fans will be the recipients of competitive fights. If talented and unbeaten fighters of the calibre of Sultan Ibragimov and Ruslan Chagaev have found themselves woefully mismatched against IBF/WBO Champion Wladimir Klitschko then what hope for the rest of the division.
It was not simply the fact that the aforementioned fighters were unable to defeat the younger of the Klitschko brothers it was the manner of their dismantling. Neither man was able to effectively close the distance against the giant Ukrainian. Wladimir was able to pick them off at will from range, his jab being the weapon he employed almost to the exclusion of all others. His physical advantages being what they were Wladimir felt no compulsion to take risks or trade, confident he could not be reached.
Wladimir’s jab is a hurtful weapon, possibly the best flaunted by any heavyweight since the prime of Larry Holmes, Yet should a jab alone be enough to rack up seven consecutive defences? It is hard to imagine that Holmes would have been able to fend off a rabid Earnie Shavers for an entire 12 rounds by utilising the jab exclusively. Yet as we know Holmes and Shavers fought on a relatively even playing field, closely matched as they were in height and weight.
Boxing Risks Rendering Its Glorious Past Obsolete
Historical comparisons have been rendered meaningless. Critics crow that Joe Louis or Rocky Marciano would have been unable to deal with Lennox Lewis. Yet what are we really comparing: Their heart, technique or resilience? In reality we are lauding Lewis’ genetic makeup over those of his more venerable co-champions. A reasoned analysis of the respective sporting merits of the combatants has been rendered obsolete.
No other division in boxing allows a man to substantially outweigh his opponent by so much. With the exception of Cruiserweight no other division permits a gap of more than eight pounds between combatants. Yet this weekend will see the 225-pound David Haye tangle with the 320-pound Valuev. The weight divisions serve an important purpose. Maybe it is time for Heavyweight to align itself with the rest of the sport.
Flair and Skill is Being Sacrificed on the altar of Size
Heavyweight boxing at present is becoming denuded of skilful and artistic practitioners. Guile, movement and flair are being sacrificed on the altar of excessive bulk. Fights like Holmes-Norton, Holyfield-Dokes and Ali-Frazier will eventually become dusty footnotes in the division’s history, replaced by the mediocre fare increasingly served up these days. Indeed no more compelling argument exists for the current desultory state of the division than the fact a seven-foot giant with a 50-1-0-1 (34 KO’s) record is treated with relative disdain. The fans are not fooled; they know Valuev is not the real deal and that only his size makes him notable.
Problems in Adding a New Weight Class
Yet simply adding a new weight division is not without its problems. In doing so boxing runs the very real risk of devaluing the very championship many fans value most. The Heavyweight champion would no longer be the biggest and baddest man on the planet, merely the junior partner to the titans at the pinnacle of the sport. Is this a worthy legacy for the successors of Dempsey, Ali and Tyson?
The problem of where to place the dividing line between Heavyweight and Super-Heavyweight could quickly become a contentious and divisive issue. Should the bar be set at 235, 240, 245 or even 250 pounds? The relative scarcity of truly dangerous "Klitschko-sized" atheletes would mean a shallow division in terms of depth and talent.
Most worryingly of all another weight class would bring further alphabet confusion in its wake, with four or more competing champions further muddying the waters. In a sport with 17 weight divisions already is this a step too far? Boxing, being what it is, there is also the potential problem of upward mobility. Like Foster or Spinks shooting for the horizon in the 70’s and 80’s the best of boxing’s smaller big men would inevitably look upwards, especially if the new division was perceived as possessing more glamour and status.
Where Does the Sport Go?
So boxing fans find themselves in something of a Catch-22 situation, possibly damned should the sport choose to innovate, beset by potentially fatal lethargy if it allows things to further stagnate as they are. What is certain is that the ever-increasing size and height disparity between the most successful fighters in the division and the relative also-rans is serving as a definitive bar to competitive fights at Heavyweight. The problem needs to be addressed now.
Steven Pink - Steven Pink is an experienced teacher and lecturer in English and History. He has worked across the age and ability spectrum in both the ...
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