Why do people say Usyk is too small for Joshua and Fury but still favour guys like Ali and Holmes?

Not many people seem to give Usyk a solid chance against AJ and Fury, largely due to the height and weight difference. But Usyk has the same height, reach and similar weight at heavyweight to Ali; seems to have a good chin; and boxes at a level above any of the current heavyweights.

And most of the time, I see Ali being favoured in a hypothetical match up against Fury and AJ (not a modern day Ali, but literally an Ali if you took him from the 60s or the early 70s). The same goes for Holmes too, who was also similar in stature to Ali and Usyk.

Why is this? Is it too much to say that Usyk is on the same level of boxing skill as Ali and Holmes, because from what I've seen, he's very good.

 

Have you seen how dangerously he waved for all the ring under the blows of Chisora? In the prime 4 or 5 rounds Usyk will always suffer the punchers imo. Too light. After the prime 5 rounds his superlative technique can prevail.

 

Nostalgia

 

I think Ali and Holmes hit a bit harder than Usyk. We also have history of them fighting and triumphing over other top heavyweights. We know Ali can take punches from Foreman and win. We know Holmes was able to get up after being dropped by Shavers, was able to beat Mercer, etc. Usyk has not been put to that level of a test yet. He has a solid win over Chisora, but it will take more than that to put him on par with proven ATG heavyweights.
Can Usyk beat Fury or AJ? Hopefully the fights get made and we'll find out.

 

Shavers was a cruiserweight.

 

Resume

 

Yeah in all fairness a small HW at ~210#. Shavers was an exciting fighter that could bang for his era. But let's get serious, he had a mediocre engine and a worse jaw.

There's a reason CW Quarry iced him in 1R and even glorified bouncer Stander also KOd Earnie.

 

usyk is just not as good as ali, not even close. i dont even have to consider resume, just watching them fight i can see it. different classes.

 

To the OP, lame nostalgia... and other, less nice sounding reasons.

If it was cringy to think a small 50s HW like Marciano could beat the best 70s HWs, it's even more cringy to think 70s HWs could beat 2000s era HWs.

 

I wouldn't favor Holmes because his success, like Usyks is more based on his fundamentals. Usyks Fundamentals are great against other cruiserweights or big unskilled clubbers like Chisora until you run into someone 30lbs bigger with also solid fundamentals like AJ or Fury.
But peak Alis pure talent is on film for everyone to see and it transcends weight classes similar to RJJ and Ray Leonard. Superior reflexes, movement and coordination. Plus a SHW chin and heart.


By the way I'm not ruling usyk out, holyfield looked like DOG**** against several guys before he was taken seriously as HW champ.

 

All I wanna know is when will AJ vs Usyk happen? No more talks and no more fight analysis. I just wanna watch the best fighting the best.

 

Fury>Usyk>Ali

Its that simple.

 

Well I guess you could argue why do people think can’t Inoue beat Spence today since Pac went from FlyW to become JMW champ and beat some of the best guys at WW.

basically, just because Usyk can’t do it doesn’t mean Ali couldn't as well.

Past it Ali beat a prime Foreman, a 45 year old Foreman was good enough to be champ in the modern’sh era.

We also just saw a fat short Mexican ktfo Joshua so these guys aren’t invincible just because of their size.

That said, I agree for the most part, it’s all nostalgia. I’ll make an exception for Ali, Foreman, Tyson though, those guys were special and would fk **** up today. I’d 100% bet on prime Tyson over Joshua/Wilder.

 

The way some people think they should re-name the modern Super-heavyweights the Super-Humans.