Opinion: High-Skill vs. Low-Skill Weight Classes

Editor’s note: The views and opinions expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sherdog.com, its affiliates and sponsors or its parent company, Evolve Media.

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Cory Sandhagen is a great fighter, and that’s not an adjective I use lightly. He proved it again in the UFC Fight Night 210 main event, stopping one of MMA’s best boxers in Yadong Song. He has beaten a lot of outstanding opponents, from spectacular knockouts of Marlon Moraes and Frankie Edgar to a one-sided, three-round domination of Raphael Assuncao and a close decision over John Linker.

While he lost a split decision to former bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw in the UFC on ESPN 27 headliner in 2021, many believe Sandhagen deserved the nod, and he has only looked better in his two bouts since. Ignoring weight and going only by fighting ability, Sandhagen matches or surpasses a lot of Ultimate Fighting Championship titleholders. I would say he’s at least as skilled as UFC middleweight kingpin Israel Adesanya, a man the UFC considers its second-best pound-for-pound talent. Yet at bantamweight, Sandhagen is only the third-best competitor, if even that. He has suffered decisive losses to the two best fighters in the division, Aljamain Sterling and Petr Yan. While Sandhagen is one of the very best strikers in MMA, Yan is even better, and despite Sandhagen being a capable wrestler with gorgeous Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Sterling is a much better grappler. That’s an excellent illustration of bantamweight being an incredibly high-skill weight class. Let’s explore this concept further.

Being a lot bigger than one’s opponent can more than make up for large differences in skill, as we learned with the early open-weight fights. There were notable exceptions of a very skilled David felling a Goliath with no clue how to fight, as was the case with several of Royce Gracie’s triumphs, but one need only watch future UFC welterweight champion Carlos Newton losing his debut to much bigger and limited heavyweight Jean Riviere to see that, yes, weight matters. However, what if we just looked at the skill of a fighter and nothing else? Obviously, it’s a little hard to judge a middleweight’s speed and power and how it would look at flyweight, but it’s still useful to think about. We’ve noted how good Sandhagen would be at any other weight class, but what about the opposite? Obviously, we’re talking about heavyweight—by far the most low-skill weight class out there.

Consider Stipe Miocic, a man who has proclaimed himself the greatest heavyweight of all-time and one who is near the very top of anyone’s all-time list, my own included. There is an awful lot to like and appreciate about the great heavyweight. Yet Sandhagen is more skilled than Miocic, and it’s not even close. Sandhagen is a vastly superior striker. His kicks are outstanding and beautifully timed and aimed, while Miocic has a decent but unexceptional leg kick, nothing more. Sandhagen has an awesome flying knee and one of the best elbows in MMA, two strikes that Miocic doesn’t possess in his arsenal. Even in terms of pure boxing, Sandhagen is better. He can switch stances well and uses a great mix of off-speed and off-power. Miocic simply doesn’t possess these higher-level boxing skills. Sandhagen also possesses better defense, one of the most important traits that separates different classes of fighters. In terms of grappling, Miocic is certainly the better pure wrestler, but Sandhagen, thanks to his vastly superior Brazilian jiu-jitsu—where Miocic remains a relative novice—and fantastic ability to get up, would at the very least neutralize him.

In fact, I often wonder whether certain Top 10 heavyweights would even crack the Top 100 at bantamweight. Tai Tuivasa, for instance, has great offensive striking but poor cardio and fight IQ, poor defense and very limited grappling. In a hypothetical fight at the same weight, any good bantamweight grappler, of which are there countless dozens, would take him down and finish him the same way Sergey Spivak did. The good bantamweight strikers—there are plenty of them—are even more technical, with much better defense and usually better cardio, the aforementioned Moraes excluded.

Realizing this vast difference in skill between the different weight classes leads us to several conclusions. For one, it would behoove a fighter to try to compete in a lower-skill weight class and avoid the high-skilled ones. Sandhagen, after all, has made a small fraction of the money Miocic has, never mind the fame and respect. In fact, the skill difference between some weight classes is so large that it’s better to be undersized for the lower-skilled one rather than big for the higher-skilled one. I believe that a lot of fighters have understood this about heavyweight versus light heavyweight. Solid UFC heavyweights like Tanner Boser and Chris Daukaus have weighed in for fights as low as 229 and 231 pounds, respectively, with plenty of body fat they could have easily shed to make light heavyweight. However, they wisely avoid doing so, as they wouldn’t be good enough to stay in the UFC for long at 205 pounds. Consider how successful of a career Alexey Oleynik has had at heavyweight, including multiple stints in the Top 10, despite being a former light heavyweight who has also been in the 220s for certain fights. That would have been impossible at light heavyweight, where solid defensive grappling is universal, and his huge weaknesses in the striking department would have been badly exploited fight after fight. One could make an argument that he is a lesser version of Paul Craig.

I also think there is a good takeaway for fans. When you’re watching a bout between two borderline Top 10 or even Top 20 bantamweights or featherweights in either the UFC or Bellator MMA, realize that you’re watching a higher exhibition of skill than elite contender fights or even championship matches in a different weight class. Yes, there may be fewer knockouts because they’re smaller and there are more technical grappling exchanges. However, you’re watching an extraordinary level of fighting ability, which deserves to be appreciated.