Birth Of The Cool

Elliot Worsell examines what makes the world cruiserweight title fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Tony Bellew so appealing.

- Elliot Worsell

AT LONG last, it’s cool to be a cruiserweight. Most assumed the day would never come.

In the doldrums since 1979, it wasn’t cool to be a cruiserweight when Evander Holyfield went to toe-to-toe with Dwight Muhammad Qawi in ‘86, it wasn’t cool when Carlos de Leon, Johnny Nelson and Juan Carlos Gomez constructed lengthy reigns as champions, and it wasn’t cool when David Haye and Enzo Maccarinelli unified the titles in an all British blockbuster a decade ago. The fights were good, the fighters were good, but never, rest assured, was being a cruiserweight considered cool.

If heaven was heavyweight, cruiserweight was purgatory. It was a stop-gap. Nothing more. You only ever left cruiserweight. It was a division you’d visit in transit, when passing through, and those unfortunate to do so vowed never to retrace their steps.

Today, however, things are different. Today, not only is it cool but the cruiserweight division is outperforming some of its rival weight classes, both in terms of quality and money. Suddenly fashionable, there’s money to be made as a cruiserweight, and it’s for this reason Oleksandr Usyk and Tony Bellew contest the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO world cruiserweight titles on Saturday (November 10) in Manchester.

One of the two, Bellew, has spent the best part of 18 months masquerading as a heavyweight, while the other, Usyk, has teased a similar move. Yet, for now, for as long as they can both make the 200-pound limit and flourish financially at cruiserweight, they will presumably stick around and embrace the perks of the division’s resurgence. In doing so, they’re repping the misfits, flipping the bird to the cool kids and showing that they, the cruiserweights, can indeed offer high-profile pay-per-view fights with no shortage of skill and drama.