Not generally liked by most boxing fans,..but what a ballsy fighter. Moves all the way up from 160-168 to heavyweight just 3 fights into his professional career. While still a very small heavyweight,...he was still a stylistic nightmare for most that he fought. Very good defense.
Byrd's style was good only against the basic brawlers. When he went up against skilled boxers or gave up size he was pretty ordinary. Pretty good chin though.
Chris Byrd was TALENTED for Sure, But He Did Himself a DISSERVICE Moving Up Sooooo Quickly, in REED's Opinion... Had Byrd Taken His Time, Spending Just a YEAR Or So @ Each Weight On His Way Up, He'd Have Accumulated MORE Money, Accomplished MORE and History Would Treat Him MORE Favorably than It Ultimately Will... REED
I actually agree with the point Boss made. Turd was an overrated technician. The boring fuck is not missed.
Legacy yes, but I am not sure about money. Cruisers didn't get paid too much back then (they never do) and also at lt heavy Byrd would have had to be a genuine superstar to make big bucks, and with his style he'd never become that. As a heavyweight he had a shitload of title fights which I assume paid well (unless King robbed it all of course)
As a fan of everything boring, I actually liked most of Byrd's fights (though Byrd vs Williamson is THE poorest title fight ever and that's including Ruiz' whole career) Still, I remember how I led when I first heard the Chris "who hits like a" Byrd moniker for him
Thomas Hauser, another of these drawling droning fucktards who literally never laced them up used to say that "Cruiserweight is Loserweight". the division was maligned back then, very much so. It wasn't regarded as proper division in and of itself but as a passing-through division for guys too lazy to make 175 or not good enough to fight at 200+ Of course it makes perfect sense to have the division, without it there'd be a basic 55lbs difference between divisions, which is mad and totally out of sync with the rest of the sport.
Your Crusierweight Point is VALID, But Byrd Moved Up HASTILY in REED's Opinion... '92 Silver Medalist @ 165, Debuted @ 169 and Within a YEAR Weighed 193...3 Months Later, 200lbs!!!...To Put That In Perspective, Byrd Was a Heavyweight BEFORE Roy Jones and James Toney Fought for the Supermiddle Title... No, Byrd Wasn't Ready for Jones or Toney THAT Early Into His Pro Career, but he Could've Parlayed His Olympic Silver Medal Into a Shot @ a Lesser Title @ '68 or '75, Surely???...REED Doesn't Recall Who All the Beltholders Were Back Then, But Beyond Roy, Toney, Hill and MichalSHITski, There WEREN'T Many "Threats", It Seems, to a Young Chris Byrd... A Major Part of Byrd Being Less than Fan Friendly @ Heavy is he Couldn't HURT Anybody...REED Thinks the KO % Would've Been Higher South of the Big Boy Division... Had Byrd Won a Title of Any Sort He'd THEN Make for a More Attractive Crusierweight Bout...The HIGHEST Profile Crusier Fights Consisted of Former Champions Who Moved Up to the Weight And/or Olympic Champions...Toney, Jirov, Holyfield, Usyk Spring to Mind... Just Seems Like an Unnecessarily RAPID Move to Heavyweight On Byrd's Behalf...He Could've Pocketed Some Championship Level Purses @ Least, and Maybe a Title or 2 On his Way Up, THEN Made Heavyweight Money... Byrd Campaigned @ Heavy from '94-'07....Had He DELAYED That Ascent Until '96-'97, Who Knows???... REED
Too much money to be made - particularly back then when HBO ruled the boxing world. When you have a window of opportunity in the fight racket you have to roll the dice then and there for a shot at the big money which is the only thing that matters in the sport. I recall Alex Garcia turning down a half a million dollars 30 years ago to fight George Foreman on HBO - a million dollars now - and then gets his butt knocked out by a losing stiff for ten grand on USA network. He was working a fighter's corner in Houston ballpark 11 or 12 years ago carrying the spit bucket. And remember Ivan Robinson turning down a million and a half to fight Shane Mosley for the lightweight title then getting trounced by Angel Manfredy for a third or less of that. I can go on all day about guys blowing it by not moving then and right then like Junior Jones did.
