Top cruisers turning out real belters
NO list of the best cruiserweights in history will include Joe Louis or Rocky Marciano, but in the modern era that is just what they would have been.
It is hard to believe two of the greatest heavyweights of all-time weighed in around 190 pounds, that’s 10lbs below the cruiserweight limit.
It is said that our own heavyweight hero Henry Cooper had to fill his pockets with coins to hit the 175lbs (12st 7oz) minimum weight for heavies in the pre-cruiser age.
With the emergence of the big men in the 1970s, when heavyweights routinely tipped the scales at 220lbs, the need for the extra division became obvious.
Ever more so today with the 240-plus behemoths like Anthony Joshua, who looks ripped at that.
The cruiserweight division turns 38 in December. The WBC was the first organisation to sanction a title, between Marvin Camel and Mate Parlov, won by the former in a rematch after the first bout ended in a draw.
Tonight in Riga, Mairis Briedis challenges champion Mike Perez for that very belt in the World Boxing Super Series, which has thrown up some stunning duels.
Former Olympic gold medallist and WBO world champion Oleksandr Usyk kicked off the cruiserweight series in Berlin, battering former world champion Marco Huck into submission in the 10th round.
In the battle of the big punchers last week undefeated WBA champ Yunier Dorticos flattened Dmitry Kudryashov in two rounds in San Antonio to advance to the semi-finals, where he will face the winner of next month’s showdown between IBF champion Murat Gassiev and Krzysztof Wlodarczyk.
Perez, a Cuban exile living in Cork, is another explosive hitter. His only two defeats have come at heavyweight, where he neither carries enough power to trouble nor the physiology to resist the very best.
The cruiserweight division was made exactly for fighters like him.
The best cruiser we have ever seen, Evander Holyfield, became an all-time great heavyweight, too, but he was a phenomenon.
His destruction of Dwight Muhammad Qawi inside four rounds 30 years ago at cruiser should be on everybody’s boxing highlights reel.
We are unlikely to see his like again, but this world series is delivering on its promise to provide exciting bouts between the best in their respective divisions.
That, after all, is what boxing is about.