Did we jump the gun on Usyk or is he still best CW ever and a top HW?

Holyfield would have weighed in the high 190s even without all the chemical help.

Still don't see him getting past Fury's jab and landing enough without getting clinched to death.

 

We don't jump the gun for nothing...we saw what we saw,were not into a dream.Clear the CW division with full of great contenders and climb up in category and fight a three belt holder.He can't go any higher to impress us.

 

Usyk >>> Holyfield

6'1.5, 190 lbs cruiser Holyfield's record at HW was 26 wins, 2 draws, 1 no contest and 10 losses (2 by KO) with a 38% KO ratio. He officially lost to Bowe x2, southpaw Moorer, Lewis, Ruiz, southpaw Byrd, Toney, Donald, southpaw Ibragimov and Valuev. Holyfield was dropped at least 6 times: Cooper, Bowe x3, Ruiz, Toney and over 91% of his fights were in America. His best uncontroversial wins were against a post-Douglas, post-4+ years in prison, 30 year old Mike Tyson and early 40's versions of Foreman and Holmes in competitive fights.

Holyfield easily could have had another loss to Bowe in the rematch, another loss to Lewis instead of a draw, another loss to Ruiz instead of a draw, a DQ loss to Rahman, a loss to Oquendo and a retirement loss to Willams. The only fight where Holyfield didn't get favourable treatment from the officials was against Valuev. These adjustments would take Holyfield's HW record to a journeyman-esque 24 wins with 15 losses, though many of those losses occurred after Holyfield had significantly declined.

Holyfield's HW record was vastly worse than his cruiserweight record: 18 wins with 14 KO’s. However, half of his fights were against small cruisers and half were against 2nd and 3rd rate blown up middleweights and light heavies. Having started boxing at 7 years old, he went life and death in a close fight at 24, after 174 amateur bouts and 12 pro fights with blown-up LHW midget 33.5 year old Qawi, who was 10 months removed from losing to small cruiser/HW journeyman Ocasio. Holyfield became undisputed cruiserweight champion after 18 fights, unifying three belts.

Heavyweights tended to be smaller in Holyfield's day so many potential cruiserweights competed in the far more popular, prestigious and lucrative heavyweight division or even LHW and cruiserweight was a new and unpopular division (for smaller men in those days: 190 lbs maximum, with weigh in’s the day of the fight) with little money, interest and prestige, much like bridgerweight today, which deprived the cruiserweight division of talent (along with lower global population size and political-economic walls). Americans don’t take cruiser seriously to this day: only 2x cruiser champ Cunningham and Hunter are of note since Holyfield. Cunningham often had to fight in Europe, which produces most of the best cruisers.

Aside from Holyfield, no one in the early days of cruiser achieved anything of note at HW, which made him look better than he was. He was dismissed for being a cruiser which made people more impressed when he beat bigger men but he was naturally bigger than LHW Spinks (who officially beat Holmes twice) as well as LHW Moorer, SMW Byrd and MW Toney, who all beat him. Typically cruisers move up to HW for the money, because they're too old or undisciplined to make weight anymore or because they've reached their level at cruiser but there are top cruisers who do not move up for health/family reasons (Lebedev is one) or for legacy reasons (they want to become undisputed at cruiser first, which is a lot harder these days). In recent years we've seen impressive HW performances from Cunningham, Adamek, Huck, Haye, Briedis, Hunter and of course Usyk, who unlike Holyfield (who first failed at SHW level in the 29th fight of his pro career which was his 11th HW fight) and the others did not fail at SHW level and beat the 6'6, 240 lbs, ultra-disciplined athlete, prime A-side AJ by a clear margin in his backyard.

 

Usyk is far and away the #1 CW and to add atop that taking out the HW Champion british golden boy in his third fight at HW. What a tremendous achievement.

Usyk be the man.

 

I didn't know he was on peds too...i thaught the only problem he got was his toes lol

 

Yes, pretty clear he's the best CW we've had to date, and would outpoint the crap out of Holyfield at CW or HW.

Holyfield's way more exciting though. One of those ATG crowdpleasers.

Haye? Why TF is he even in this discussion?

 

A fighter being more aggressive often leads to him being overrated. That's a big reason why Vitali is more popular than Wlad.

Assuming they could make the weight, I reckon Briedis or Lebedev would have easily gone 18-0 in Holyfield's pathetically weak cruiserweight era, Gassiev and Huck too. Holyfield's rating as a cruiser has a lot more to do with what he did at HW, the guys he beat at cruiser alone wouldn't even put him in the top 5.

 

Yes i know about Holyfield now(peds cheater) i was talking about Haye...and his toe in the fight against Klitschko.

 

Usyk has surpassed Haye in almost every metric, and climbing...

Haye was unified cruiserweight champ, Usyk was undisputed.

Haye was a heavyweight beltholder, Uysk is unified.

Haye has respectable list of cruiserweight wins over Gurov, Fragomeni, Mormeck and Maccarenelli, Uysk has a stellar list over Mchunu, Hunter, Huck, Glowacki, Breidis, Gassiev and Bellew.

Haye has a respectable list of heavyweight wins over Valuev, Ruiz, Chisora and Barret. Usyk has only Chisora and Joshua, but Joshua is pretty much better than Haye's entire list combined.

Haye has four losses, Usyk has none.

Usyk has been stopped or down against Thompson, Mormeck, Mock and BellewX2, with an uncredited knockdown against Barret. Usyk has never even been in danger of a knockdown.

Haye notably cherrypicked fights...Usyk gets extra points for being the road warrior, defeating whatever was put in front of him in their own backyards

You can give Haye power if you want. He had a great right.

Haye had a good, laudable career, and Usyk is one of the best ever.

 

We saw Haye's level when Wlad pitched a virtual shutout against him. Haye was in survival mode for most of the fight, threw himself to the canvas numerous times trying to get the ref to take points away from Wlad and didn't really try to win for fear of getting brutally KO'd.

Anyone who even implies that Haye might be better than Usyk is either a partisan moron or they have no knowledge of boxing. Even after three heavyweight fights, Usyk has a better HW win than Wlad's career best and Usyk's wins at cruiser are better or competitive with any of Wlad's HW wins, plus Usyk has no losses, hasn't been knocked down once and is a road warrior. Usyk > Wlad, Usyk >>>>> Haye.

 

Well stated. Usyk beat a real man and a great fighter in Joshua.