Heavy Duty: Upper-Class Fighters I (of V)

Airing from St. Louis this Saturday, Strikeforce’s second Showtime event is playing host to some issues of substance: Regular-duty welterweights Nick Diaz and Jake Shields are scheduled to take on middleweights Scott Smith and Robbie Lawler, respectively. (Not a tag-team bout. The sport is cool, but not that cool.)

Diaz and Shields’ move up the scale recalls earlier examples of MMA athletes who increased their pasta intake to face challenges in a heavier weight class. While this happens regularly in boxing, lighter athletes there at least have the benefit of moving around the ring and avoiding power. In MMA, someone bigger getting the mount or bullying you into the cage can absolutely ruin your night. And face.

Don’t confuse weight ascensions with freak show bouts: Royce Gracie taking on Chad “Akebono” Rowan isn’t an orchestrated leap up the ladder. (There’s no Shamu division.) Athletes must have been paired in the post-David/Goliath era and must have had comparable skills, making the weight a true factor.

All this week: 10 fights where the small stood tall.

B.J. Penn vs. Matt Hughes (UFC 46, Jan. 31, 2004)

In 2004, Matt Hughes was: steamrolling opposition, riding a 13-fight win streak and a two-year tenure as welterweight champion; believed to have the muscular density and horsepower of an angry baby gorilla; felt Penn was “disrespecting” the class by trying to move up and intended to teach him a lesson.

Ominously, Penn had failed on two occasions to secure the lightweight title. Most felt he was risking his literal neck.

It was yet another fight that didn’t match paper predictions. Uneasy on his feet, Hughes collapsed to the mat, with Penn working him over from the top. He eventually landed a big right hand wound up from the bleachers, choked Hughes into submission, kissed him and then took his belt.

To this day, Hughes may have trouble deciding which of the four bothered him the most.

Anderson Silva vs. James Irvin (UFC Fight Night 14, July 19, 2008)

There was and is little debate that Silva was and is the best 185-pound fighter in the world. Whether those skills retain their effectiveness when opponents are walking around at up to 220 pounds was the story of the night.

Forrest Griffin, Silva’s opponent Aug. 8, may do a better job of asking that question in a more hostile manner than Irvin, a journeyman 205-pound fighter who was chum for Silva in the UFC’s free-TV attempt to smother an Affliction pay-per-view event that same night. After a 60-second feeling-out process, Silva ended the fight with piston precision: catching a kick, delivering a right hand to a rooted Irvin and finishing with strikes. So clean, you could almost smell the Pine-sol.