Now that it looks like Usyk's moving up to HW, how do you rank his opponents at CW based on resume and respective performances? My own top five would be: 1. Gassiev 1. Briedis 3. Bellew 4. Glowacki 5. Huck To be honest you could probably swap a lot of those names around depending on what you look for. Gassiev and Briedis are a solid one and two for me at the moment, though that might change depending on what they go on to do. I'd rank Huck higher if he was a little closer to prime, and I might even include Hunter depending on how he pans out at heavy. Bellew is maybe a little high, but I was impressed by his performance against Usyk, even though he lasted the shortest of all of them. Glowacki might leapfrog Briedis if he beats him in the semis; that's an interesting fight that'd give a bit more definition to the division considering both men are quite evenly matched physically and resume-wise. Thoughts?
1 gassiev - elite 2. briedis - world class 3. huck - world class (former elite) 4. bellew - lower world class 5. glowacki - lower world class after that it gets pretty meh but thats only because hes only had just over a dozen opponents. Figure in his fearsome amateur record and the depth is there. IMagine what his record will be after a score of feuds, or even 40.
Top 5 would be 1. Bellew 2. Hunter 3. Glowacki 4. Briedis 5. Mchunu 1. Bellew was easily the best competition Usyk has fought so far. Bellew's effective upper body movement, effective mobility, and timing neutralized Usyk in the middle of the ring. For the first time Usyk couldn't just stay in cruise control and get an easy win. He had to make adjustments, had to trap Bellew in the corners on the ropes, and also had to up the pace in order to break Bellew down enough for the knockout. Bellew came with the perfect game plan, but seemed to have slacked on his conditioning while Usyk was putting in 5-6 miles of road work. 2. Hunter's speed and athleticism allowed him to beat Usyk to the punch in the middle of the ring, but his inexperience and poor timing didn't allow him to land as effectively as Bellew did. Also, in the late rounds most likely due to almost a year of inactivity he started gassing. I think Usyk let him off the hook out of mercy in the later rounds and didn't force the stoppage. 3. Glowacki is a good puncher, but whenever he landed he never tried to setup combinations on Usyk, which could've turned the fight in his favor. He also didn't go the body enough and his upperbody movement was labored, which resulted in Usyk racking up easy points. He had a lot of success landing the overhand left that Usyk was a sucker for, but didn't have the footwork to close the distance and capitalize with a combination. 4. Briedis is most likely the most durable opponent Usyk has face as a pro, but for the most part is a very sloppy fighter. He landed a lot, but rarely landed clean and when it was obvious that Usyk was cruising to an easy decision he started fouling out of frustration. 5. Mchunu had the athleticism and handspeed to compete with Usyk, but unfortunately he isn't a very smart fighter. Mchunu pretty much gave the fight away by trying to use the shoulder roll against a fellow southpaw that had both a significant height and reach advantage. Once Usyk seen him use the shoulder roll one too many times Usyk just started punching over his shoulder and broke Mchunu. Floyd Mayweather himself wouldn't be foolhardy enough too use the shoulder roll against somebody he was giving up that much height and reach against.
Hunter was definitely much better than than version of Huck. Huck had been on a huge decline as a fighter for years.
Hunter's a bit of a question mark for me. Initially I thought he was a bit meh, but he seems to be notching up some decent wins at HW. Could turn out to be one of his more underrated wins.
Thats becuase he is an american that lost to a easterne European. American fans were forced to throw him under the bus. He could win a world title at heavyweight but he still wont get credit because it will be seen that he is proping up uysk. Like russell jr is a top top fighter but 99% of americans dont care about him, he will never get that bus off him
