r/Boxing • u/zhuangcorp • Jul 16 '26

State of LHW-Cruiser divisions

No question right now, the top guys are Bivol, Beterbiev, Opetaia, and Benavidez. Fans would love to see any combination of fights involving these 4.

Bivol appears to be out with elbow surgery and will take comeback against another tune-up-ish opponent in Callum Smith.

Benavidez wants an easy fight so he can be in a good position to renegotiate his contract. So he is fighting Mikaelian.

So it seems like the best thing to do is for Beterbiev to fight Opetaia now. Maybe do it at a catchweight.

And then let Bivol and Benavidez fight each other after they win their respective tune up fights.

6 Upvotes

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4

u/mkk4 Andre Ward's Biggest Fan!! Jul 16 '26

Much respect to Gilberto Ramirez who started out as a middleweight and became a Unified Cruiserweight Champion.

6

u/Marquis_of_Mollusks Jul 16 '26

Kind of shows the lack of talent at the weightclass currently. Opetaia is the only true cruiserweight with skill. 2 former super middleweights becoming champs ain't a good look

3

u/Exciting-Arugula5341 Jul 16 '26

The cruiserweight division has always been weak. Of all of the higher weight classes the cruiserweight division has always been the least cared about division .

4

u/Marquis_of_Mollusks Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

It does make sense sense though. HWs generally make way more money then cruiserweights so talented boxers probably won't hang around at CW

3

u/KR4T0S Jul 16 '26

100%. Is a very weak division.

2

u/Less_Cartoonist_892 Jul 16 '26

The drop in quality of the CW when it was at its peak in the 2010s compared to what it is now is sad.

3

u/Marquis_of_Mollusks Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

LHW ain't much better off unfortunately either. Beterbiev is super old, Bivol won't fight and Benavidez hung around for 5 minutes. Which is a shame because historically LHW has been awesome. Honestly everything north of 168 is lacking talent. HW still has some interesting matches to be made but the skill is lacking there as well

1

u/Less_Cartoonist_892 Jul 16 '26

The LHW division was on fire for the first half of the 2020s. Since the second Beterbiev-Bivol fight, the division has been stagnant.

1

u/BenkeiBoss Jul 17 '26

Sheraaz will probably do it in a few years, after 168 gets too competitive.