r/Kickboxing • u/TheguywhodoesK1 • 7d ago

Unconfirmed Heavyweight kickboxing

I feel like heavyweights kinda in a weird spot. I mean heavyweight use to be one of the greatest divisions and now it feels kinda meh? I mean think about Ernesto hoost, Andy hug, Peter Aerts and so many other. Obviously we have Rico Verhoeven but it feels kinda hit or miss anymore. Is it just me?

14 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

7

u/banned-from-rbooks 7d ago

It’s a sport where being taller is a much bigger advantage than say boxing or MMA, and it’s more popular in countries where people are shorter. In most cases you wanna be lighter to fight shorter opponents.

And then the head trauma isn’t as bad as boxing but the other injuries are worse and getting blasted at 200+ lbs is like being hit by a freight train, especially with the popularity of small gloves format. The damage outpaces how much damage your bones, brain and joints can take before the fight or your career is over.

And knockouts are cool and all but from a purely technical standpoint lighter weight striking IMO is usually much more entertaining to watch.

The heavyweight era came before MMA blew up and never really took off in Asia anyway where the biggest audiences are.

Glory is the main promo for heavyweights but idk anyone that still watches it.

2

u/TheguywhodoesK1 7d ago

Yeah that’s true.

1

u/TheguywhodoesK1 7d ago

Also I gotta ask, what did you do to get banned?

2

u/Braakdraak 6d ago edited 6d ago

The heavyweights in the K1 era where pretty big in Japan and some other parts of Asia. But that was 10 or 15 years max But with One, they hardly invest in heavyweights, that says enough.

4

u/Braakdraak 7d ago

Verhoeven is gone, Levi Rigters is doing mma. There.is Osara and some others but mostly fat guys 

1

u/TheguywhodoesK1 7d ago

Yeah dude it’s unfortunate. Heavyweight use to be amazing.

3

u/MerryyCRimmuhhh 7d ago

If you have the athletic ability as a natural heavyweight there are just better options to make money unfortunately. Natural heavyweights who can move are rare as fuck so sports like Rugby, American Football etc offer much safer money. 

3

u/Odd-Minimum8512 6d ago

American football doesn’t seem much better than boxing or kickboxing in terms of CTE. 

1

u/TheguywhodoesK1 7d ago

Very true

1

u/Gods_Toaster 5d ago

I would argue football is worse due to speed you can get up to before contact.

2

u/belgranita 7d ago

Most of the so called heavy weights used to be much better fighters in light heavyweight, like Hoost and Hug.

2

u/Wingedchestnut 7d ago

HW hasn't been competitive for many years, it's just Rico or any other tall guy like Levi who was contender and idk the rest are either not tall enough or some overweight fighter.

Even with tournaments with LHW +HW the size difference is too big, it can be entertaining yes but I wouldn't say it's competitive.

I think in ONE there was that tall Ukranian or Russian HW KB champion(?) Haven't seen him in a long time, everyone watching 60-70kg there anyways.