Dan Henderson, BJ Penn and Randy Couture all fought in two weight divisions and won 2 titles. Rich Franklin has had mixed success at MW, LHW and in catch weight bouts. Anderson Silva is 3-0 at LHW. Jake Shields was the Strikeforce MW champion and had a title shot at WW. So should more fighters move up and down divisions?
That's purely up to them. Some guys have less trouble shifting between weights and dealing with bigger, stronger or smaller, faster opponents. Diego has fought with pretty good success at 2 weight classes.
"Should" is relative. It all depends on the fighter, possible match-ups, career implications, physical issues, and many other criteria. If a fighter wants to move that is entirely his choice and only time can tell whether or not that choice was the best for him.
I agree with this, but as a fan I am more likely to support someone who is willing to move up in weight. I think that gain in popularity makes the "should" a marketing and legacy argument.
Not really. Why don't more guys move down? Oh, that's right, they're looking for size advantages and they're too big at their own weight class to reasonably cut that much weight. Why would smaller guys move up a weight class only to find that they're still about a weight class short in the size department?
According to silva haters, he's not even good until he stops ducking his good friends jds and machida.
fighting at a natural weight and cutting weight to fight put a different strain on your body it is some thing you have to get use to before you can do it. if any thing i would say some caught weight fights at the most but its not boxing the classes are not 5 to 10 pounds different so its a a lot harder to do for most guys.
