True LHW's now hold the UFC, Bellator and ONE HW titles

I don’t know if there is a human being who couldn’t cut to a healthy 250lb. Maybe Valuev or Hong Man Choy but these guys are from a lab and they also suck.

Even a guy like Tyson Fury has big ol belly at 265lb

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Yeah that’s fair. Even Schilt was around 250 in his prime I think.

I don’t think Hunto could make 250. Bigfoot Silva either. Brock and Francis could in theory, but they would literally have nothing without that size

I’ve always heard it said that a true HW is a man who can not make the cut to cruiserweight or 205 lbs. I don’t think saying most LHW’s are true HW’s is accurate.

We are talking about Tyson Fury, Vitali Klitschko, Karelin, Semmy Schilt, Renan Ferreira, Brock, Ngannou, Tom Erikson, Paul Varlens, Brian Shaw, etc…

A “true HW” does not describe a man that walks around at HW before weigh-ins but a man who can’t make the cut to the weight class below HW.

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Nemkov has now successfully made his HW debut.

Just submitted a former PFL HW champ.

Nemkov has not lost a fight in eight years.

Very interested in how he does now that he says he is done with LHW.

Still only 31, though a small HW, not a true HW, he is gonna be a problem in that division.

So even at 18% bodyfat, Shaw is 384 lbs. What a monster. RIZIN needs to sign him now that he is interested in taking a MMA fight. RIZIN or KSW.

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From my understanding he’s supposed to fight Eddie Hall. That would be fun to see. He’s probably too old to go too deep into it I’d say but it’ll be a little similar to Mariusz Pudzianowski when he started. Crazy power but probably bad endurance just due to so much msss and very tight. A very tough fight for anyone Rizin could get and likely not a crowd pleaser.

Yeah that Hall fight was supposed to happen Feb 17th but Shaw came out and said it was off. The claims by the promoters of ever intending to pay and feature the strongmen is thought by some to have just been a giant publicity stunt for the promotion.

Hopefully someone offers Shaw enough money to actually fight because he has trained to some degree and I want to see it. Freakshow MMA is fun, or at least it was in the big JMMA era of PRIDE, K1 and DREAM.

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Yeah its like, Pudz but add 100 lbs of mass.

Pudz was fighting MMA all the way down at like 255 lbs to 265 lbs.

Shaw would be fighting at like 360 lbs or 370 lbs most likely.

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Unless extremely out of shape (like Paddy gets between fights), a fighter’s natural division is the closet to their walking around weight - not the lowest they can starve and deplete themselves to for an extremely short time by the day of weigh ins.

If cruiserweight actually existed then it would be the natural home of the 230-235s.

As people use the phrase, when they say a HW is a natural/true/legit or real HW they are talking about a man who can’t cut to 205.

Nobody considers someone’s natural weight class their walking around weight.

Is Mighty Mouse a natural FW or LW then?

Is Ronda a natural LW?

Is Dustin a natural MW because he walks around over 170?

Your definition makes no sense.

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And there is is, Malykhin is now the first triple champ in big promotion history.

Now ONE runs classes at 205 lbs, 225 lbs and 265 so its a little different and he beat Bhullar and De Ridder two times to do it so its not like he beat three top 5 fighters in the world to become a triple champ but he is in the history books.

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You don’t seem to understand what natural means :laughing:.

Geoff Neal went from 170 to 200 in 24 hours. That’s not natural. Your definition says that because he can completely drain himself and get to 170 for a very short time, it is his natural weight. That’s laughable.

Rumble also must have been a natural 170 since he could make it on occasion.

No offense brother, but you don’t know fighting well

Everyone knows natural weight class is the weight class guys can make at the end of a hard camp with around 10% cut.

Starving and depleted isn’t Geoff Neale. It’s 170 Swick or 135 George Roop.

You also don’t understand what natural means. The meaning of the word doesn’t change based on what you think is a reasonable cut.

Nor do you seem to be particularly good at math considering the example is well over the threshold you set.

Natural means different things in different contexts.

Any MMA coach worth their salt would call Sakuraba a natural welterweight. Any 6 foot 190 guy at 16% body fat is a natural welterweight. If he roided up to a bodyweight of 230 at the same body fat, or just ate his way to 205 as a fatty, or emaciated himself to make 145, those would be unnatural

Cutting weight correctly, eating reasonably out of camp, and strict dieting and training hard for an 8 week or so camp is the natural environment of a fighter

Rumble is actually a good example. The others you gave are not.

I agree - Sakuraba was a natural WW. So if Sakuraba was a natural WW, how do you come to the conclusion that someone like Neal, who’s 15-20 pounds heavier and infinitely more ripped, is too? :thinking:

They could all do 250lbs. Hunt is a unit but he’s 5’8.

I’ll say I don’t know about Brian Shaw the guy is an absolute anomaly but if Schielts was 250lbs in his prime than really anyone could cut the weight, guys like Shaw will have to cut muscle but they could still be healthy at 250 imo

A MW/LHW in Belcher was also the BKFC HW champ for a while. Went 4-0 in the promotion at HW.

Just lost to JDS last night in his attempt to become the first BKMMA HW champ.

Nicholson is another fighter who has bounced around MW, LHW and HW and he as well came up short vs HW Chase Sherman last night.

Same height at 6’4 but Sherman had 40 lbs on Nicholson at weigh-ins.