The cruiserweights who failed to make an impact at heavyweight

As Jai Opetaia prepares to defend his belt once more in Australia, we look at some cruiserweight boxers that failed to make the leap into the heavyweight division

Jai Opetaia in action against Jack Massey in October (Getty Images)

This weekend will see a bout for the IBF cruiserweight championship between Jai Opetaia and Claudio Squeo in Broadbeach, Australia.

The pair will meet in a card, shown exclusively on DAZN, over twelve rounds at the Gold Coast Convention Centre. It will be Opetaia’s third defence of his title, with the Australian being labelled in recent days as the top man in the cruiserweight division by former 200lb king Mairis Briedis.

So far, Opetaia has shown little appetite for moving northwards into the heavyweight division. Back in December, the Australian told Boxing Scene that his present focus is on uniting all the belts at cruiserweight.

“At the moment,” he said, “I’m fully focused on collecting the belts as a cruiserweight and then once I’ve done that, we can start talking about the heavyweight division.”

If Opetaia does move to more than 200lbs – and, at 6’2”, he would be at the shorter end of the cruiserweight division – the desire would be to follow in the footsteps of current heavyweight king Oleksandr Usyk (who reigned amongst the 200lb-ers for years) and Evander Holyfield (the ‘Real Deal’ was the first undisputed cruiserweight champion before his mid-90s run among the heavyweights).

All that in mind, there are many, many cruiserweight kings that opted to pack on the pounds but failed miserably in their attempts to go large.

Jean-Marc Mormeck, 37-6 (23)

In a just world, Jean-Marc Mormeck would have been a huge star in France. In 2006, he failed to unify the cruiserweight titles against O’Neil Bell in New York when he was stopped in the tenth round but defeated the Jamaican in their rematch fourteen months later. Both fights were tremendous.

Mormeck, instead of pursuing a third match with Bell, instead took on David Haye in Paris and found himself being knocked out in seven rounds after putting the Hayemaker on the floor in the fourth. After that, Mormeck drifted up into the heavyweight division, taking on Vinny Maddalone, Fres Oquendo, and Timur Ibragimov.

But, in truth, he never looked that great. At just 5’10”, the added weight (and his age and the mileage) slowed Mormeck, and he seemed lucky to squeak out decisions against all three.

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In 2012, already advanced in age, Mormeck went to Dusseldorf to face Wladimir Klitschko. There was no great clamour for the match, but the location of Dusseldorf – close to the French border – swung the opportunity into Mormeck’s favour.

There was little Mormeck could do, however. He was dropped in rounds two and four, the latter for the count. Afterwards, he retreated back down to cruiserweight but a loss to Mateusz Masternak finished his career.

Marco Huck, 43-5-1 (28)

Few careers have gone so far astray as Marco Huck’s.

Huck won the WBO cruiserweight title in 2009 with a unanimous decision against Victor Emilio Ramirez in Halle, Germany, and then defended it thirteen times over the next six years. After leaving his management in Germany, he opted to take a cruiserweight fight in Newark, New Jersey, against Krzysztof Glowacki, thinking that this most-recent defence would make him a major international star.

Unfortunately for Huck, Glowacki outlasted him in a war and stopped the German in eleven rounds.

Huck returned to Germany, where he struggled to find meaningful venues and TV shows for his fights until his bout with Mairis Briedis in 2017. Another loss, and then Huck was back with his management to take on another cruiserweight fight – this time against Oleksandr Usyk.

After losing in ten rounds, Huck has spent the last seven years trading off his cruiserweight fame amongst the heavyweights. Various ‘comeback’ fights have taken place, including against Dennis Lewandowski in a half-empty ice hockey arena in a small town in the German Harz mountains.

Last year, the 39-year-old Huck fought ten rough rounds in Berlin against heavyweight gatekeeper Evgenios Lazaridis, winning 97-93 on all cards. Since then, despite teasing more ‘comeback’ fights, the Berliner is yet to return to the ring.

Yoan Pablo Hernández, 29-2 (14)

A Cuban who defected to Germany, Hernández won the IBF cruiserweight title in 2011 against Steve Cunningham, then successfully defended it three months later against the same man. He then defended it three more times against Troy Ross, Alexander Alekseev, and Firat Arslan before retiring in 2014 with a record of 29-1 (14).

Six years later in 2020, Hernández came back at heavyweight. His first fight in the division was set against gatekeeper Kevin Johnson, 34-17-1 (18), who had fought (and lost) to Vitali Klitschko in 2009. Johnson had settled into a life on the road since then, fighting and losing to Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, Nathan Gorman, Filip Hrgovic, Martin Bakole, Daniel Dubois, and Andy Ruiz.

Johnson was not tremendously pleased with his assignment against Hernández.

“I’ve fought the best punchers in the world,” he told me at the time, “and then they put a cruiserweight in front of me? That’s disrespectful.”

It was so disrespectful, in fact, that Johnson stopped Hernández in seven rounds.

After that, Hernández retired once more.

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