Does a fighter, especially these days, have to go up through the weight classes, winning world titles in each one as he goes, to become a true great? It seems, with the vast number of weight classes there are in the sport today (certainly vast in comparison to the traditional 8 weight classes of yesteryear), fans have an urge to see a talented champion move up to try and conquer another weight class almost as soon as he has collected belt-one.
Case in point: middleweight king Gennady Golovkin. GGG has pretty much cleaned up the 160-pound division (save getting and winning the fight he, and we, want so much, in Canelo Alvarez) and there are cries for him to move up, not only to 168-pounds but also to 175-pounds. Is this asking too much of a fighter who is not that big for a middleweight in the first place? Golovkin has spoken of going up to super-middleweight himself, once he has collected all the middleweight titles (just the WBO strap to go) but does he need to do so to become a great, a legend?