Thank You, Oleksandr Usyk, for Eviscerating the Bridgerweight Concept

The bridgerweight division limit is 224 pounds.

The undisputed heavyweight champion of the world weighed in one week ago at 223½ pounds.

And we need to split heavyweight into two weight classes, why exactly?

Boxing owes Oleksandr Usyk many debts of gratitude these days, starting with his humbling of Tyson Fury (assuming humility is a quality Fury is capable of possessing). And to that list of things for which we should be thanking Usyk, now add this: He has demonstrated definitively that there is no practical purpose for an 18th weight class, one residing between heavyweight and cruiserweight.

The alphabet groups frequently introduce atrocious ideas that drive fans away, but rarely do we get such a conclusive illustration of how misguided their proposals and pronouncements are.

The subdivision of heavyweight is an idea that has been around for decades, with someone periodically popping up to suggest that modern heavyweights have gotten too large and it’s unfair to smaller heavyweights, so we need a “super heavyweight” class for the biggest of big men and something else for the smallest of big men.

To all those who have suggested the idea without trying to siphon sanctioning fees from it, I say: Your hearts are in the right place.

But your heads need to be unscrewed, deep-cleaned and reattached.

Time and again we’ve seen gifted and motivated smaller heavyweights defeat world-class larger heavyweights. They have to overcome certain disadvantages along the way, sure, but the 220-ish-pounders also tend to possess certain advantages over the ones who outweigh them by 50 pounds. Size and strength are helpful; speed and precision are often preferable.

Usyk earned only the narrowest of victories over Fury, but along the way he demonstrated precisely why 223½ pounds is a fine weight at which to tangle with someone who weighs 262. You have to know how to stay out of extended clinches, you have to understand how to change levels, and you have to be willing and able to take some hurtful punches. But it can be done.

And it has been done far too often to dismiss as a fluke.

Usyk over Fury. Usyk over Anthony Joshua – not once, but twice. David Haye over Nikolai Valuev. Chris Byrd over Vitali Klitschko. Ross Puritty (224¾  pounds), Corrie Sanders (225 pounds) and Lamon Brewster (226 pounds) over Wladimir Klitschko. Evander Holyfield over Buster Douglas, George Foreman, and – one time, at least – Riddick Bowe. Max Baer over Primo Carnera. Jack Dempsey over Jess Willard.

Some of those victories were more definitive than others. And I freely acknowledge there are countless examples of excellent super-sized heavyweights beating excellent more traditionally sized heavyweights.

But there is a century of evidence that indicates, no matter how giant you grow ‘em, size can be overcome in the boxing ring when you get north of 200 pounds. Usyk, who gave up about 6 inches and 40 pounds against Fury and roughly 3 inches and 20 pounds against AJ, is the latest example – and the perfect one to slam the door in the face of the notion that boxing needs another weight class so that poor widdle 201-to-224-pounders have a chance.

Former heavyweight champ and soon-to-be Hall of Famer Michael Moorer, speaking to BoxingScene earlier this year, is among those who got the Usyk-Fury fight completely wrong because he overestimated the supposed advantage of being bigger.

“That’s a mismatch. Look at the size difference. Usyk … should be the heavyweight champ, Tyson Fury should be fighting in the super heavyweight division and he would be the super heavyweight champ. Why are you going to have this big mismatch?” Moorer questioned.

The use of these quotes is not meant to embarrass Moorer; every expert and every fan gets predictions wrong, and there’s no shame in having picked Fury to win. But Moorer has been around this sport long enough, and rose from light heavyweight to heavyweight successfully enough, that he should know better than to think size is the be-all and end-all.

He’s far from alone, though. Lots of people fall into the trap of envisioning one boxer towering over another and letting that mental image obscure all other factors. Moorer asked aloud of Usyk, “But does he have the power to hurt Tyson?” As it turned out, yes. Yes, he did. But Moorer assumed he didn’t, and insisted of the modern behemoths in the division, “Now, these guys are bigger. Make a super heavyweight division.”

It’s a misguided idea. The fact is, the word “heavyweight” still carries a cachet that no substitute division name does.

The word “bridgerweight” has been a laughingstock since Mauricio Sulaiman first tried to explain it by writing that “it is the necessary bridge to serve the large number of boxers who are between 200 and 224 pounds.” Necessary? Let me channel my inner Inigo Montoya and tell you, Mauricio, that I do not think that word means what you think it means.

“Cruiserweight” has been in the pugilistic lexicon for some 40 years, and it’s still hard to get most boxing fans to care about a fight when that division name is attached to it.

And if we start calling the likes of Fury and Joshua “super heavyweights,” as Moorer suggests, they’ll reject it because their childhood dream and career goal was to be heavyweight champion of the world.

Usyk, to his eternal credit, directly refused an alphabet body’s attempt to rank him at bridgerweight when the division was first created.

Just about the only people who welcome a bridgerweight division and the belts that come with it are fighters who are not capable of competing at the top of the heavyweight division.

I apologize for how disrespectful that sounds, but it’s simply the truth. It’s a division for heavyweight boxing’s minor leaguers.

One organization’s rankings say Evgeny Tishchenko – with a record of 12-1 and a loss to cruiserweight Thabiso Mchunu in his most noteworthy fight – has its bridgerweight title. Another alphabet group recognizes one Lukasz Rozanski, because he defeated one Alen Babic. The only other man who has held a bridgerweight belt was Oscar Rivas, who vacated his strap without making a single defense.

The bridgerweight division was dead on arrival. Oleksander Usyk buried it six feet underground with his performance on Saturday.

He reduced by one the number of remotely legitimate heavyweight title claimants. And in so doing, he reduced by one the number of weight classes any reasonable person can believe boxing should have.

We don’t need super heavyweights. We never did. But we especially don’t when we have a super (long pause) heavyweight.