Fat In The Middle

[Juggertha]

Yeah, the main point here is not a bloated midsection, but rather not enough blood getting to the top.

[marcelino]

Hmmm... well I never implied that they would be thrown to the bottom of their current division, much less move down (seriously?!). They would stay at the top and try to keep holding the title. I think that is something hard to do and boxers do that all the time. There is no shame in that. How long can you hold the title? Yeah they are great in their division but doesn't mean they move up in weight class. If you're a mid, your a mid. If you're a light, you're a light. There is nothing wrong with it.

I know it is difficult to claim three titles in a division but you have to admit that some do thin out from time to time. I haven't seen it in the LHW so you are correct. Not everyone would eventually be a Heavy but recently the lights where just three fighters. Or if you rotate the same 10 or so fighters in any division someone is bound to get three eventually. Does that mean they are automatically ready for the next division?

Not to sound like a band geek but.. I remember being in an all-region band where a band director started going off on a first chair player. Her reply was, and I paraphrase, "I'm the best here, it doesn't mean I'm good". I'm sure she was pretty good but her point was that he was asking for something above her level.

But hey that could be a good way to trim some of the fat off the middle. Rather than adding to the Heavies and Lights you could just invite people to exit from the LHW and MWs. That's thinking outside the box.

You can have your own opinion. Just don't make assumptions of mine, run with them and then react like they're mine.

[jessemunoz]

I still think my idea is the best

Why do we have four divisions. 3 divisions is perfect for the amount of people we have. There's ways of doing it without reweighing or moving people down or even renaming the divisions. Middle, lhw, heavy. Move the lw up to middle and you have 15 middle, 15 lwh, and 5 HW. Perfect!

[Popninja]

I see what Marcelino is saying, but I've always understood PUMMEL to be a competition where you slay your way to the top and, in the process, get better and better and better until one day you're at the top of the heap...HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF PUMMEL. I also understand that there are guys that, no matter what, are never going to be heavyweight. Maybe, then, make it an option for whoever is the top of their division. Say, if "X" is the lightweight or middleweight champion and defends it three times successfully BUT doesn't feel they are ready to move up to the middleweights or lightheavies, etc, then they can stay and defend their weight class until a #1 contender knocks them down.

Give the champion the option to move upward.

I also like Jesse's idea.

[Juggertha]

Pop, think that optional move is a great idea.

[ChrisMcJunkin]

Hmmm... well I never implied that they would be thrown to the bottom of their current division, much less move down (seriously?!). They would stay at the top and try to keep holding the title. I think that is something hard to do and boxers do that all the time. There is no shame in that. How long can you hold the title? Yeah they are great in their division but doesn't mean they move up in weight class. If you're a mid, your a mid. If you're a light, you're a light. There is nothing wrong with it.

I know it is difficult to claim three titles in a division but you have to admit that some do thin out from time to time. I haven't seen it in the LHW so you are correct. Not everyone would eventually be a Heavy but recently the lights where just three fighters. Or if you rotate the same 10 or so fighters in any division someone is bound to get three eventually. Does that mean they are automatically ready for the next division?

Not to sound like a band geek but.. I remember being in an all-region band where a band director started going off on a first chair player. Her reply was, and I paraphrase, "I'm the best here, it doesn't mean I'm good". I'm sure she was pretty good but her point was that he was asking for something above her level.

You can have your own opinion. Just don't make assumptions of mine, run with them and then react like they're mine.

I made one remark that was an assumption based off of the re-weigh in upon 3 championship wins. The rest was direct replies to remarks you stated. "I think that'd be a pretty bold slap in the face to someone who has earned their allotted number of Title Bouts and I'd be hard pressed to imagine someone wanting to return to the competition if their reweigh-in caused them to be thrown back into the bottom of their class or one below." If that wasn't your intent then my apologies, I was more or less looking for clarification. I probably could have stated it better in retrospect.

I still strongly disagree with the idea of changing any of the rules of Pummel for a fix on what I see as a temporary problem. Pummel is set up with the clear reward of being able to move upward if you put in the time and work. By holding someone at the top of their division all I see happening is that they will eventually retire as most of the people who've obtained the top HW position have done. No fault in that mind you, but once you've reached the top, what's really the point in continuing to battle?

At it's core I don't think the number of people in the various classes is so much the problem as is the lack of particpation from some of the people involved, namely with what happened in the HW division last month.

Anyways, I'm going to take a backseat to this discussion as I prefer to stay out of the politics as much as possible. I had reservations about chiming in on this in the first place but I really thought someone should act as a counter-argument to what was being proposed.

[Spidey]

So like seriously, Welterweight class.

HW - 5 matches
LHW - 7 matches (Take 3 off from bottom)
MW - 6 matches (bottom 3 from LHW and top 3 from MW class)
WW - 7 matches (bottom 7 from MW)
LW - 5 matches

This way it will be a little easier to get a chance at becoming a champ in any given class and each commissioner would have less fighters to manage. I'll volunteer to manage the WW or new MW class. If somebody really desires to move to a certain class they can still beat 3 guys from that class any time they want.

[Dann]

So like seriously, Welterweight class.

HW - 5 matches
LHW - 7 matches (Take 3 off from bottom)
MW - 6 matches (bottom 3 from LHW and top 3 from MW class)
WW - 7 matches (bottom 7 from MW)
LW - 5 matches

This way it will be a little easier to get a chance at becoming a champ in any given class and each commissioner would have less fighters to manage. I'll volunteer to manage the WW or new MW class. If somebody really desires to move to a certain class they can still beat 3 guys from that class any time they want.

As one of the guys that would be affected by this...I think I hate this idea.
Gotta say I side with Chris on this....it's not broken...why fix it??

[scmarooney]

I agree with Pop almost 100% . He covered all the things I was thinking in a much more concise way than I ever could! The optional thing seems like a no-brainer, even if I don't think a lot of competitors are actually going to do that (by its very nature the competition is going to make most division champs want to move up, to seek harder challenges). Only problem I can see with sitting at the top of your weight-class for a while is the frustration it might cause lower-ranked competitors if they are unable to de-throne the champ and are unable to move up with the streetfight method?

I also find myself more in agreement with Jesse than with Spidey, as I think it might be better to have 3 classes than 5. In any case it might be best to do away with the "lightweight" name altogether; call them bantamweights (if the class is kept and not folded into the middleweights) or something else, as there seems to be an onus surrounding being a "lightweight" (it's like you aren't taken seriously as an artist or something?). I do feel a bit bad for the Lightweight champ who will suddenly find themselves in the middle of a fairly large Middleweight division, though.

Perhaps those competitors who feel they have been unjustly placed in one division or another can be reweighed on a case by case basis, but I really think that the whole weigh-in procedure is one of the weaker elements of PUMMEL. I think that some serious weigh-in criteria ought to be established and agreed upon (perhaps a check list of some sort). As it stands, it seems way too subjective right now.

Mostly I'm just against doing anything that is going to make a bunch of people unhappy (I'd never make it in politics ).

[Spidey]

Lol, Sean. You can't please everybody. What is the big deal with there being more matches in the middle classes again?

[Juggertha]

Honestly... there isn't. The big deal, if there is really one, is the Heavyweight class being so light.

[Dan 3000]

We could also have a Ranking Tournement, erveryone who is in Pummel fights the the postion they are going to be in. The first who are eliminated would be at the bottom and the winners at the top.

[technological]

I think you need to use the results as a way of ranking ppl up and down in the system. This ensures that people are in the classes that they belong in. Its not about being mean or anything it is about people competing in a group they actually can compete in.

It also would push a person to get better and do their best.

I believe people are here to get better not to be falsely placed in a ranking they don't belong.

But that is just my humble opinion. take it or leave it. :-D My class is below the lowest, I just enjoy looking at all the art. I did start sketching again today for the first time in years.

[ArmstrongArts]

We are gonna talk this to death again and deside to do the same thing we desided to do the last three times we talked about it.....nothing. and nothing is the right thing to do. Some of you are arguing that we make it harder to move up in class, you are missing the point. The heavies are too small not too big. and if the heavywieght class gets big.....so what. That just means we have a lot of people that have played for a long time and have gotten better. The quick solution he is to take the to 3 people from the light heavy and put them in the heavies. End of problem, the LH doesn't have an issue getting use people into it. The top 3 LH have worked hard to get to that level and could hold their own against the heavies.

[ArmstrongArts]

As an adendum (damn I wish I had spell check of my phone)

This kinda plays off of what Dann said. Since the top three this month and the tops three next month are not neccecarily going to be the same 3, we could have a draw off with the guys that were top this and next (it would be 5 guys tops) and the top 3 get bumped up.