What weight divisions would you consolidate, eliminate or add?

Are there too many weight classes in boxing? (currently 17)
Has it hurt or helped the popularity of boxing?
Should some be consolidated?...Eliminated?....Added?
What changes would you make?

 

get rid of some of the bottom divisions. that is all.

 

I happen to enjoy the myriad of weight classes within boxing. Moreover, the addition of weight classes such as Cruiserweight have become necessary in order to accommodate individuals who are too big for light heavy and way too small for todays era of massive heavyweights.

That being said, others argue that only the following weight classes are necessary.

Heavyweight
Light Heavyeight
Middleweight
Welterweight
Lightweight
Featherweight
Bantamweight
Flyweight

It would indeed simplify the situation for the casual fan.

 

Doesn't boxing need to attract the casual fan to thrive?

 

Casual fans don't give a shit about weightclasses. They just wanna see someone get knocked out.

I can never imagine anyone going, "Hey how many weight classes are there in boxing?"
"seventeen."
"Oh shit, that's too many. I'm not gonna watch boxing."

 

They should create a SuperDooper HW division and make Valuev shadowbox against himself.

 

"casual" fans in the states may not care about anyone under 160...so what?

you think fans in the pacific region care for anyone over 130?

 

I would add a super heavy division with a 235 lb limit.
I would then eliminate the cruiser division.

There would be at least 7 lbs between each division in my perfect world.

 

Boxing has been too confusing with 17 weight classes and four major sanctioning organizations and 68 world champions PLUS interim champions as well as champs for regions, countries, continents, internationals, youths, juniors. In addition there are minor sanctioning organizations touting "world championships". Every pound is a weight class and every boxer is a champ, former champ, contender or former contender. There are multi- division champions sometimes having held titles in 4, 5 or 6 "weight classes". Not only are the casual fan turned off but most boxing fans could not tell you who the champions are.
Because of it all boxing is no longer considered one of the major sports but is now a fringe sport. Things need to be simplified.

 

get rid of the super/junior divisions. if they werent neccessary before then why do we need them know?

i agree about the superheavyweight division. if guys that weighed a 190 lbs could be considered heavyweights(like in the old days), then the division would be alot more exciting. guys like haye, mormeck etc...would be well recognized fan favourites representing the division the way it should be represented.

 

I like the divisions pretty much as is, except for maybe bumping up cruiserweight slightly to let smaller heavyweights (like Haye maybe?) be able to keep from getting pummeled by the giants of the division.

 

Delegitimize one or two of the 'major' belts. It would be so much easier with just two per weight class.

 

take the cruiserweight division, change it to the Heavyweight division and up the limit to 215 or 220.

give the fatboys their own division and call it the super hw division. enough of them embarrassing the sport. one of the smart things mma did was make the 205 division the marquee for the sport. not the biggest, but big enough to give that aura of invincibility, but not too big so their skills are still more important than their size.

plus, this where most of boxings best HWs were at. 215 on down. I dont know much weight guys like Haye are cutting at cruiser, but by the time they enter the ring these guys are already HWs. and they put on much better fights. give the division to them.

 

personally i think that the weight divisions are the problem i think it helps add to the sport, yes i'm talking about the super/junior weights which are a misnomer but they do add to the confusion of the casual fan c'mon chavez was the best at 140, or thats where he became legendary for starters

but i don't really its the weights that concern people, its the multiude of belts out there, way too damn many, you got to have all four to be undisputed and even if you're linear but don't have all the belts people get confused

situationally the lw's right now, casamayor is the linear champ, campbell's got most the belts, but david diaz is going to tangle with pacman and seeing how thats the most popular man right now he's probably going get the lw recognition because he's the most known, it doesn't even matter with most people that casamayor is linear and campbell beat arguably the best lw to win the wbo/ibf/wba straps

but no organization wants to stop doing business, hell would you? but they should comply in either naming it jr. welter or sr. light weight, seriously thats a fucking misnomer they could do something about that

and i did like the fact most people were looking at the linear champs and only regarding the ring belt but problem is now the ring is owned by oscar de la hoya so we might have to wait to see what kind of influence he's gonna bring

 

I think adding a super heavy weight division would be the easiest fix that could make a difference right away.

 

I really have no problems with the weight classes. I dont really watch a lot of the real small weight, like below 130, but they seem to be exciting. From what I've seen weight classes aren't going to stop the best from fighting each other. They will find a way to fight each other.

However in the future they may need to do something about the HW division because are just going to get bigger and bigger until the average HWs are like 250. That is just my opinion though.

 

i think the one area i would change is the mw 160 to cw 200

i think the 168 to 175 is pointless compare to the massive difference between 175 and 200

theres so many fighters that are caught in gap that really struggle to get to 175 but are way to small to fight against cw

then on the other hand i think the they should get rig of the smw division and make it 160 172 190 hw

or maybe bring in a 185 division and kept the crusierweight divsion and make it 160 170 185 200

 

It's amazing what 5-10 pound difference can do. The junior/super division are necessary in my opinion. But I have mixed feelings about 200 and above.