Why Are The Brits and Irish So Good At Super-Middle?

The Groves-Froch rematch & the recent thread by Alex Huckerby has got me thinking. Since the Super-Middleweight Class appeared in the mid-80s, the British and the Irish have produced a large number of both champions and contenders for this weight class; surely more than any other weight class. Why are we so good at it?

Champions:
Murray Sutherland (initial IBF champ)
Chris Eubank (WBO)
Nigel Benn (WBC)
Steve Collins (WBO)
Robin Reid (WBC)
Richie Woodhall (WBC)
Glenn Catley (WBC)
Joe Calzaghe (WBO, IBF, WBA "Super" & WBC)
Brian Magee (WBA "regular")
Carl Froch (WBC, IBF & WBA "regular" - or is it "Super"? I can't keep up with their silly rules!)

There have always been a half decent number of contenders as well, often resulting in some cracking domestic fights. Such contenders include Michael Watson, Ray Close, Henry Wharton, George Groves, & James DeGale (admittedly Watson only had one fight at the weight, but had it not ended in such terrible circumstances I have no doubt he'd have been a "world" champ). The have also been those deemed good enough for a voluntary defence such as Lou Gent and Nicky Piper (both fought for Benn's WBC title).

Granted not all of the fighters mentioned are or were the very best at the time, with fighters such as Toney, Ward and Jones Jr being examples of the real "top of the pile", but surely we've produced more champs at this weight than at any other. Why are we seemingly so much better at this weight?

Less competition probably. The Asians, Maexicans and South Americans seem to populate the lower weight classes and peter out at the higher weights.

Interesting question. Don't think you can really narrow it down to one factor, and on top of that I suppose there's just an element of luck / chance to it.

First off, it's worth remembering that a grown male in the UK / Ireland tends to be a bit taller and heavier than those in many other countries which are considered boxing powers - I'm talking your Latin American, Oriental and in some cases African countries, here.

The reason the weight classes right at the top of the scale (Heavy, Cruiser) and right at the bottom of it (Straw up to, say, Bantam) get derided for having little depth and having less top-quality operators is largely because the size of those men competing in them - either considerably above average size or considerably below it - do only represent a relatively small chunk of the adult male population. If you took the average height and weight of a grown man across a wide selection of nations, it looks to me like you'd more often than not come across builds which fit somewhere between Lightweight and Light-Heavyweight if you were trying to deduce what weight class they'd be best suited for once you'd got them in tip-top shape.

How many great Oriental or Mexican fighters have campaigned above Welter? Not all that many when you consider how many champions those parts of the world have produced. Hispanic and Oriental fighters have dominated the Flyweight division for the last 80-odd years, for instance, but in the eighties in Britain the BBBC were considering abolishing the division before Magri came along, because there was such a lack of interest and dearth of talent in it. In this neck of the woods, a fighting weight in the region of twelve stone just seems to be a pretty ideal fit for us, which might explain why we've had so much success there.

On top of that, I just think success and rivalry inspires others, and forces them to bend to your way of thinking. Hard to properly qualify that theory, but just seems to be a trend to me that whenever one country has a surprise impact in a division on the world stage, it inspires a spate of similar successes. I mentioned Magri before - after he effectively revived the UK Flyweight scene, fighters such as McAuley and McKenzie found world title success within a few short years on the world stage (whereas it had been 17 years before Magri won the WBC title that any other Brit had held honours at 112 lb). America hadn't had a Bantamweight title holder in nearly forty years before Jeff Chandler - within a dozen years of him winning the WBA title, they had a few more such as Johnson, Jones, Sandoval (albeit he was Mexican-American), Seabrooks etc.

And once you've got a buzz around a certain division, people are willing to move up / down accordingly to be a part of the scene, get their name out there and earn that extra bit of money. Catley is a decent example - he was really just a Middleweight who jumped in to a Super-Middleweight title fight against Woodhall at very, very late notice, but performed so well that he ended up thinking it was worth making it a permanent move, even if he did look a little outsized at the weight.

Yeah Id go with a lot of what Chris said, especially regarding genetics. Closer to home, Afrikaners numbers hover around three million, and they've produced three major world heavyweight champions in the last thirty years, while little Hekkie Budler is probably the first Afrikaans genuine champ at a smaller weight. Any surprise the average Afrikaans male seems to be 6 don't plenty 20 stone?

Other advantage is opportunity. A little easier for a Brit to get an opportunity, both in terms of opposition, and title shots, because hes in the appropriate market than it is for Obafemi the 13-0 sensation from parts unknown (fictional fighter)