Make Light Heavyweight Great Again (And Why Boxing Might Provide the Answer)
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Same As It Ever Was?
Ask boxing fans their opinion of the cruiserweight division and you’ll get one of two answers:
“It’s shit” — Anonymous and completely made up source, 2020
Or:
“It’s the best division in boxing, and has been for around half a decade” — Completely made-up source which completely reflects anyone that actually knows shit about boxing
The 200lb weight class has gone through a lot of changes: from its inception (at 190lbs) to a bump 10lbs north, to a huge influx of talent after the 2012 Olympics and a solid roster of European fighters predating even those historic games.
However, for much of the days following Evander Holyfield’s successful venture into the heavyweight division, the first quote would’ve appropriately summarised the quality of the cruiserweight division: we as boxing fans were lucky if the talent pool was top heavy.
Most of the time it wasn’t even that: it was a graveyard stuck between two of boxing’s best divisions, it’s decerepit state only furthered by a lack of unifications.
Thus, when David Haye unified three of the division’s belts—even in an era where the talent pool was barely top heavy—he snatched all-time great status by default.
Could it be that the division wasn’t glamorous, and thus didn’t attract top tier talent? Certainly, two of the very best fighters to make the leap from light-heavyweight to heavyweight—Michael Moorer and Roy Jones Jr—skipped the cruisers entirely.
Could it be that there just aren’t many top-notch talents of cruiserweight size? That’s a possibility too, and even boxing historians will tell you that if you look to the premier big boy division there has only really been two or three genuinely stacked heavyweight eras. Let alone putting up a fence between the largest fighters in boxing.
However, this long standing perception of the division as being poor has led to the former statement being a catch-as-catch-can statement for the division whoever you ask, whenever you ask them. Even giving the great era we’ve just seen, with nearly all the fights we wanted to see happening, and many of the fights being outstanding, the perception of the division is that it’s still as bad as it’s always been.
You may be asking:
What has this got to do with MMA?
If you were to ask any of The Fight Site staff what their opinions were of MMA’s light-heavyweight (205lb) division, well, I’ll save you the time and point you in the direction of the first made-up statement you’ll see at the top of this article. Ask them about the era preceding Jones—featuring a smorgasbord of talent spread all over the world including but not limited to the likes of Kazushi Sakuraba, Wanderlei Silva, Dan Henderson, Shogun Rua, Ricardo Aronas, Alistair Overeem, Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture and many, many more—and their opinions would vary on the actual quality of these fighters, and thus it would not quite hit the spot if you were looking to pinpoint the division’s golden age.
Certainly Jon Jones’ era—Daniel Cormier aside—where he beat the past-prime versions of the previous eras best plus a middling bunch of contenders from his own era, is nothing like a great timespan for the division.
But—much to the shock of myself and other boxing analysts whose opinions I respect greatly—boxing’s cruiser class got it’s own golden age: the likes of Oleksandr Usyk, Murat Gassiev, Mairis Briedis, Denis Lebedev, Yunier Dorticos, Marco Huck, Grigory Drozd, Tony Bellew, Krzyszof Glowacki and a huge host of ghoulies in a dense supporting cast that made for a stunning era and saw a truly great fighter crowned when all was said and done.
Look at Jon Jones then, as the Johnny Nelson of mixed martial arts: 13-1-2 in title fights, Nelson’s opponents ranged from excellent (Guillermo Jones) to terrible (most of them) and although Jon Jones is a far more natural fighter than Nelson and—in a sport as young as MMA—far greater in his respective combat sports, I use Nelson as the comparison to show that in a weak talent pool, long title reigns are not too hard to achieve.
Nelson never unified, but Jon Jones doesn’t need to, especially looking at the champions of other organisations. Nelson is not the only cruiserweight you can find with a long reign numbers-wise, with nothing to show for it but belts in his mantelpiece and a derisory groan whenever his name is brought up amongst boxing aficionados. Only social media and a fervent fanbase—as well as the UFC constantly hyping up their record-breaking light heavyweight champion—likely saves Jon Jones from the same fate.
Bu again, this is not a direct comparison, but instead my want for a glimmer of hope.
A glimmer of hope that we will soon be able to differentiate between a truly great era of 205lb fighters, and the usually-not-great-but-almost-always-bad light-heavyweights we’ve seen before.
What might happen?
For if mixed martial arts receives a talent injection post the Japan Olympics (I hesitate to say 2020 Olympics because we just don’t know when they will happen due to COVID-19) or a good crop of heavyweight-sized fighters just happens to materialise, it may well be that we get a far deeper talent pool emerge.
With a good bit of luck, Dominick Reyes might not even need be the heir apparent: he would just be one of many good contenders.
So who is MMA’s Usyk? Could we see the likes of Lukas Krpalek (6’6 Czech judoka)—who had success against real-life French hulk Teddy Riner—take off the gi and take down mixed martial artists? The transition from judo to MMA isn’t the easiest, but watching tape of the Olympic and World champion, it doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to see him smashing prone fighters on the ground.
Other fighters who could make the transition from ground fighting to ground and pound: Seemingly unbeatable wrestler Abdulrashid Sadulaev, or maybe his rival Kyle Snyder could make the transition over to mixed martial arts? Instant eyes on the division from a lot of talent-hungry MMA fans I’m sure, and a future MMA fight between the two would have the story line already written.
What about Ohio State Buckeye Kollin Moore? This article seems to think he would have the skillset and competitive spirit to make his mark in professional MMA:
Why he would dominate MMA:
The returning 3x All American has everything you would look for in an elite upper weight wrestler turned fighter. High offensive output, great motor, strong and physically tough. Did I mention mean? From OSU assistant coach J Jaggers: “I always choose Kollin first when we play any pick up game - basketball, spike ball, etc. Not because he’s our best athlete but because I don’t want to deal with him trying to fight me the whole game”. Teach Kollin to box and you got the next big thing at 205.
Another top wrestler who could easily make for a great MMA prospect is Bo Nickal. Our own Ed Gallo wrote about the standout wrestler for Bloody Elbow but saw his future at 185lbs instead:
If Bo Nickal makes the team and earns a medal, I doubt his move to MMA comes before the next cycle ends. He’s too valuable to USA Wrestling and he’ll adjust his goals after reevaluating his ceiling.
If he doesn’t, his new manager Malki Kawa will likely get him to the UFC within five years, and that’s a safe estimate. I’d expect to see him competing at 185 pounds, where his relaxed, creative style, combined with lethal leg attacks and upper body chops, would make him nearly unstoppable as a takedown artist. That is, if he picks up striking to a decent degree. Given Nickal’s wizardry as a mat wrestler in college, I doubt he has any trouble developing a dangerous ground game to top it all off.
But if Bo did make a move to MMA and did decide to campaign at 205lbs, he’d be yet another excellent addition, and would bolster the weight class much as the likes of Usyk, Gassiev and Glowacki did in the mid-2010s. What we need is top-notch amateur talent to take up MMA.
But would an elite-level pro be what we’re really looking for?
Would devastating kickboxer Alex Pereira see the success his countryman Thiago Santos had against Jon Jones and decide cutting down to 185lbs is not worth the hassle? He currently holds the GLORY light-heavy title, which resides at 209lbs, so a longer stab at an MMA career at 205lbs is surely not out of the question?
And of course, there’s always the chance that actually elite 185lbers like Paulo Costa, Yoel Romero and Israel Adesanya jump in Jon Jones’ yard and start making a mess. If the success of Anthony Smith and Thiago Santos shows us anything, it’s that the middleweights aren’t really at a disadvantage in terms of size or skill compared to the current crop.
That’s what it will take to make light heavyweight great again. For now, it’s one great fighter putting on not-so-great performances against not-great opponents.
Perhaps we will miss out on our ‘golden era’ for light heavyweight. Hell, boxing fans waited thirty years for a legendary roster to appear. But if all the chips fall, my fellow Fight Site analysts won’t be able to say the division is shitty for much longer.