I've been thinking for a while (I think since the Vassell rematch) that a drop to middleweight may really help out Newton. He's not a small light-heavyweight (not a big one, but definitely not a small one, unless not-big = small), but, unless he's really still committed to retiring at 33 (which leaves 2 1/2 months), if you look at his current 1-6 stretch since 2015, a lot of the guys have been a lot bigger than him. Granted, three of the losses were very close and could have easily gone his way (Mcgeary, Evgeny, Artur), but still, you don't have to know too much to look at the disparity in size between Newton and Krylov, Vassell, Mcgeary, and even Davis and assume that he's gonna have a hill to climb.
His style-- switching stances from the outside, landing a lot of light strikes, mixing in some hard-by-their-nature punches, muscling around your opponent once you get a takedown-- would also be a lot more effective if he didn't have to fight guys that were so much bigger than him. It doesn't take too much knowledge to know that if your style's built around fighting from the outside, you can land your strikes easier when your opponents don't have a significant height or reach advantage (or are a lot trimmer and, thus, more vulnerable if they do.) And I think it's feasible for him to trim off some weight and be able to make the cut to middleweight as easily as his current cut to light-heavyweight is.
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