The difference between moving up and outgrowing weightclasses

[NaijaD]

I think it varies which each fighter. It takes a tremendous amount of sacrifice and willpower for a boxer to reach a particular weight limit. For example, some have to work at least as twice as hard to get down to their fighting weight while others do not.

Bernard Hopkins is a good example of this. Yes, while he was comfortably making the 160lb limit; However at the same time, there were notable signs that he had outgrown the division or having difficulty making weight, which was evidenced by his uneven performances, leading up to the Jermain Taylor losses.

For example, by the time he was nearing his 40th birthday, he was losing both stamina and power. His work rate was getting very low as he was averaging throwing fewer punches per round. Also, he lacked the stamina to get stoppages as compared to earlier in his reign as Middleweight champion too.

All these signs point to the fact that he was having trouble making weight and had outgrown the division. However, once he moved up to 175, he became a reinvigorated fighter. He was stronger. Had more energy and power, as his work rate increased by averaging throwing more punches per round and scoring knockdowns at the higher weight division as well.

Green K'd

His situation is definitely very different from Golovkin's which is why I don't think he should be used an example as to why GGG should move up.

[boliodogs]

Did you even read any of what I said?

Take off your fan boy shades for a second and understand the point of the thread.

I like your thread and I agree with all of it except the part where you paint all GGG fans with one brush and call them all fan boys. GGG has defended his middleweight world titles successfully something like 14 times and he has KOed 16 guys in a row. All the boxing experts put him in the top 3 pound for pound boxers in the world. Common sense says he is going to have lots of fans. A few of his fans may be unreasonable or fan boys as you call them. Every good boxer has a few fans like that. Overall GGG fans are just as reasonable and no more annoying the fans of any other boxer. I am a huge GGG fan. I give Brook full credit for moving up two weight class to fight GGG. I think he is very brave and foolish to do so. Brook weighed 156 pounds on fight night when he fought Porter and 9 pounds isn't an unusually large weight gain. Clearly Brook isn't a natural middleweight. You have an excellent thread going here but please quit calling all GGG fans "fan boys".

[1g5a22]

I thought I would make this thread because I often see people saying things like this guy moved up 3 or 4 weight classes when to me it appears that he outgrew those weight classes. I think there are fighters that actually jump up weight classes for challenges but there aren't as many as people think, most times when a fighter moves up it was because the strain of making weight was beginning to affect his performances in the ring. Also it is much easier to go through divisions at lower weights, you can't say stuff like Broner moved up 4 times so why can't Golovkin when it's evident that Broner is simply outgrowing divisions... how many times has Broner lost a belt on the scales?.... Would you say Danny Garcia moved up to 147?? I wouldn't.

Other examples:

Floyd Mayweather: I'm a fan of his but the narrative of him moving up 4 divisions is false in my opinion, he pretty much outgrew all of them except for his move to 154 as that is what I would call a jump up as he could still make 147. A strong piece of evidence is him not honouring the CW with Marquez..... despite his low rehydration weight gain it is clear that he could not get below 146 comfortably and chose to pay Marquez the penalty. Just because you only pack on a couple of pounds doesn't mean you can cut extra weight.

Manny Pacquaio: Less certain about when he did jump up but I believe up until he got to 135 he had been outgrowing divisions but he did make the move up to 147 to face De la Hoya and this was clearly evidenced by the fact he dropped down to 140 for his next fight against Hatton. So you could say he moved up like 2 or 3 divisions.

Hopkins: Now he actually made the move up to LHW... a 2 weightclass jump, he was always a big middleweight but he always made weight without trouble so you can't say he outgrew the weightclass but it would be worth noting that he only made this move after he was dethroned by Jermain Taylor. Would he have done this if he hadn't lost to taylor? .... your guess is as good as mine.

Brook: A large welterweight by any standard but its obvious he is making a 2 weightclass jump here. Golovkin fan boys will try to tell you this guy is a natural middleweight but any one who isn't a cheerleader knows Brook is moving up and not outgrowing his division. He recently talked up a future Spence fight and still holds the IBF title and is yet to vacate it so right now as far as I'm concerned he is still a welterweight.

In Golovkin's case, I don't think very many fighters would move up in his position to be fair. He is average sized for his weight class and holds multiple titles there, of course if he wants to achieve greatness he can move up in the future but people are using bad examples to justify him moving up... I've seen a guy say Canelo moved up (like really??) so why can't GGG. Canelo never moved up anywhere, the guy is outgrowing divisions.... God knows why he's still at 154. I'm no Golovkin fan but I believe in fair criticism regardless of whether you like a fighter or not, very few fighters do what some of you are asking him to do and those that do often do so because of money. There really aren't really any money fights at 168 unless he fights DeGale in the UK.

Just my two cents/pence on the whole moving up thing, if you guys have other examples of fighters who actually moved up and didn't outgrow their divisions I'd like to hear them.

Because he wants to unify ALL of 160? What don't you people get? He's biding his time..

Brook is moving up for HIM! Golovkin isn't going anywhere. He's a MW. Embrace it..

[boliodogs]

You are right. Most fighters move up in weight because they have outgrown the weight class they are fighting in. That's the intelligent thing to do. Moving up in weight when a boxer is very comfortable in the weight class he fights in can be ****** and get good fighters beat. When Danny Garcia had a catch weight fight at 143 and Ward had a catch weight fight at 172 it's obvious they were have trouble making 140 and 168 respectively.

[intoccabile]

Big MW's don't comfortably make 156 for a title fight. Hopkins appeared bigger than he actually was for the division. He had a frame that could fill out better than most, hence the successful move up - but he was able to weigh in 4lbs below the MW limit with ease, which speaks volumes on whether or not he was "outgrowing".

[NaijaD]

I like your thread and I agree with all of it except the part where you paint all GGG fans with one brush and call them all fan boys. GGG has defended his middleweight world titles successfully something like 14 times and he has KOed 16 guys in a row. All the boxing experts put him in the top 3 pound for pound boxers in the world. Common sense says he is going to have lots of fans. A few of his fans may be unreasonable or fan boys as you call them. Every good boxer has a few fans like that. Overall GGG fans are just as reasonable and no more annoying the fans of any other boxer. I am a huge GGG fan. I give Brook full credit for moving up two weight class to fight GGG. I think he is very brave and foolish to do so. Brook weighed 156 pounds on fight night when he fought Porter and 9 pounds isn't an unusually large weight gain. Clearly Brook isn't a natural middleweight. You have an excellent thread going here but please quit calling all GGG fans "fan boys".

Apologies.... I don't think all GGG fans are fan boys, I meant the ones that say that Brook is a natural middleweight and other outlandish comments to justify the Brook fight are fan boys.

There are many reasonable GGG fans and you're probably one of them, I wasn't generalising.

You are right. Most fighters move up in weight because they have outgrown the weight class they are fighting in. That's the intelligent thing to do. Moving up in weight when a boxer is very comfortable in the weight class he fights in can be ****** and get good fighters beat. When Danny Garcia had a catch weight fight at 143 and Ward had a catch weight fight at 172 it's obvious they were have trouble making 140 and 168 respectively.

Yeah that's the point I'm getting at too.... for instance people will say Crawford moved up to 140 after cleaning out 135 but he actually outgrew 135 and spoke of troubles making weight in his last match against Beltran. It's a very common misconception so I wanted to point it out. Golovkin is catching far too much flak for this whole moving up thing. Rarely ever does a fighter who has no trouble whatsoever making weight move up unless it's for big money.

[1g5a22]

I meant the ones that say that Brook is a natural middleweight

Who said that?

[NaijaD]

Who said that?

Go to the 30 day weight thread, there's more than a few people saying that.

[daggum]

I wouldn't say his work rate stamina and power all increased at 175, he had the same stamina problems and low work rate that he did post 40 years old. The knockdowns he scored were all results of perfect timing (Tarver, Calzaghe, Pascal) and we saw him lose fights due to low work rate (Calzaghe, Dawson) and not having much power. He was probably rejuvenated for the Tarver fight, after that I think it wears off since he's accustomed to the weight. This is all just a product of being old - his late run at 160, his decrease in work rate is a result of getting older.

The better clue was he stated it was getting too difficult to make the weight at 160. He started mentioning this a fight or two before Taylor. But hell, by then he was already 40, not many guys naturally keep growing at age 40. Rather, getting older probably just made it more difficult to shed the 10 pounds to make weight.

didn't he lose that fight because the judges were blind? I read something about dat

[1g5a22]

Go to the 30 day weight thread, there's more than a few people saying that.

Give me one respected non trolling poster who has stated categorically that Brook is a natural MW? Or are you just peddling propaganda to pump up an anti GGG fan-base thread in an effort to denegrate the man himself? Brook is a career MW who will probably fill out into a MW. Simples.

Many others have.