How does Usyk do against these past great heavyweights in their primes?

"And it should be painfully obvious just watching the fight, that Holyfield was having issues and couldn't summon up any energy."

If Holyfield was having problems with his heart then why did he get in the ring? How severe were those problems if they existed? Did the heart problems go away directly in between Moorer 1 and Bowe 3 when he soundly beat Mercer, who would go on to give prime Lewis hell and lose a razor-thin disputed decision coming off poor form and inactivity? How was a man with "heart problems" able to throw 499 punches over 12 rounds and absorb 341 against Moorer? He looked bad because the skilled southpaw made him look bad.

If lame excuses are ok for Holyfield then they're ok for Moorer. Moorer's already weak chin had absorbed 6 fights and 68 pro rounds of punishment (and who knows how many in sparring) in the 3.5 years between Holyfield 1 and 2 and he'd been knocked down in multiple fights, including heavily by Foreman. Yet even with his now glass chin and Holyfield's 12 rounds of high level southpaw experience that he lacked the first time, Moorer still made the rematch a war and won a few rounds, with the punch stats close after 8. With a strong chin, the LHW southpaw would have won the rematch too.

"and had looked god awful in one of the worst trilogies of all time vs John Ruiz coming into Byrd fight"

That was coming off a competitive 2nd fight with prime Lewis was it not? The 3rd fight with Ruiz was easily Holyfield's best and although the Rahman win was a TD after 8 rounds, most had Holyfield ahead at that point. That was directly before the Byrd fight and Holyfield didn't have a fraction of the success against Byrd's slick and awkward southpaw style as he did against Rahman or Ruiz, so it's far more likely to be a case of Holyfield struggling against a particular style than him suddenly becoming "shot", particularly as he was still fighting 8.5 years and 11 fights after that.

"Holyfield also claimed Ruiz had the fastest handspeed ever and would of beat him"

Holyfield claimed that Ruiz had the fastest handspeed of anyone he faced (may well be true) but I never heard Holyfield say Ruiz would beat him in his prime.

I think Holyfield was just telling the truth about Usyk: he knows he struggled badly with southpaws and he stated that boxing improves over time, so much so that he claimed he'd "tear up" the "slow" Joe Louis.

"Usyk's resume isn't even as good as Moorer's or Byrd's"

There is no objective way to judge a résumé as it entails weighting a vast array of factors but by many metrics Usyk is vastly superior to both:

Moorer was knocked down more than 10 times in his pro career, Byrd also hit the canvas with some frequency, whereas Usyk has never been dropped by a head shot in his 375 fight career and not been dropped by anything in roughly a decade. Moorer had 4 losses and Byrd 5, Usyk has zero. Usyk is a virtually unparalleled road warrior, Moorer and Byrd were not. Usyk beat a reigning SHW champion and in dominant fashion, Moorer and Byrd did not. Usyk was an undisputed cruiserweight champion prior to becoming a unified heavyweight champion, Moorer and Byrd held a maximum of one belt at LHW. These are a few off the top of my head but there are no doubt many other relevant points that could be made.

"Moorer fought at that weightclass for only 2 years, he was never a natural Light Heavyweight and you know it"

Moorer was still boiling down to 175 at 23. The self-described "blown up SMW" Byrd could have easily fought at 175 for most of his career. Holyfield never fought below 176 as a pro so technically he was never a LHW, though it's true he was very undersized. I consider them all blown up LHW's compared to Usyk, who had moved up to 200 before he turned 22.

 

Given his other skills, I think he would have a chance against anyone.

 

But there are levels to great.

 

Styles make fights. Usyk isn't a power puncher so he's not going to be blasting strong chinned fighters out in 5 or 6 rounds. He also may have some uncomfortable moments early against an ultra-aggressive fighter in a small ring who outweighs him by 3 stone. Usyk did however soundly outbox Chisora over 12 with many factors against him, which I detailed in my previous reply on this topic.

If Chisora is a journeyman then what does that make Parker, who was dropped and outworked by Chisora over 12 in the next fight? What does that make Whyte? Chisora was arguably Vitali's toughest opponent of the 45 who didn't beat him. Chisora's record looks bad because he's been willing to face contender and championship level fighters as the B-side time and time again, including 3-4 ATG's. Manny Steward said that he regarded Chisora as one of the most serious threats to Wlad, due to his style and mentality. He's vastly experienced, teak tough, has great heart and is a behemoth. In at least 3/4 of those respects he's superior to Mike Tyson.

Usyk doesn't need massive power, he's got enough to keep opponents honest and to break them down over the rounds. He's also got great IQ and all round skills, southpaw stance (which Tyson didn't experience once for some reason) elite athleticism, mental toughness and an iron chin. He wouldn't stand in front of Tyson like an idiot, which is what most of his opponents did. After Tyson had blown out his 4 round gas tank (which would deplete faster against Usyk) Usyk would comfortably outbox him and he'd become demoralised. Knowing Tyson's temperament and beliefs he may well try to get himself DQ'd rather than suffering the humiliation of having an Eastern European school him for 8-10 rounds.

 

Nah I think he is sincere.
He just has a deeply biased view, a hybrid of the malady of finding newer & larger fighters so superior (although size tends to be an advantage, it is only one factor) & really loves Usyk.

Who is very impressive, but he has the opposite syndrome of those who would automatically dismiss the chances of a great current champion vs. other ATGs.

The most glaring mistakes he made-Ali knocked Karl down in 3 rounds, stopped him in the 12th, was never in danger of even being dropped, let alone likely to lose.
This in nobody's idea of "life & death".
Ali was not overrated in this fight.
And adding up punches landed-assuming the numbers he claimed are correct-are a highly selective, biased way to say who is winning by how much.

Ali outlanded Frazier in FOTC, does he deserve that decision?
NO, because it is not the amateurs, Joe would have fought differently, high volume & lighter shots on the inside, if things like aggression, ring generalship, efficacy & force of blows were not considered.
Fuhgettibout dropping the other guy-& still Ali landed more blows than Karl.


Also Tyson who was a superb combination puncher whose speed accuracy & defense while waiting for counter punching opportunities would only have a "small puncher's chance"?
Favoring Usyk, especially absent a stylistic advantage, seems wrong, but even that is defensible.

Saying prime Tyson has almost no shot is not a reasonable position.

 

Sorry you are copying my language-albeit admittedly sincere-to make a case almost everyone will find irrational.
It is one things to favor Usyk, to say Ali would be certainly dominated by Usyk is waaay out there.

You CHANGED your original claim, now instead of Ali going "life & death" you said "for prime Ali".
That is an entirely different statement.
Also it means little to use a phrase that means Ali was in grave danger of losing, & usually implies a guy is really hurt, beaten up, often knocked down repeatedly-& modify it to subvert its original meaning by comparing him to his greatest performances.

If we had a survey about whether Ali went life & death with Karl Mildenberger, I predict you would be the only one who might say this. I will create the thread if you like.
Even you might not; since now you modified it to relative terms.

Obviously if we were to have a H2H fantasy match, you cannot give Ali traits he does not have-he is at least some disadvantage due to missing training & scientific advantages.
Unless we specify that to be fair he should get them too...Although a body transforming method seems to not be a good indication of what a man was...

But it would be completely unfair to only let Usyk see Ali, & Ali gets no even video looks to study his opponent.
So you cannot cite that as a boost to Usyk in a fair match.

You are cooking the numbers a bit-I am sure removing 1/2" from Karl's height was an accident though-you were honest but found the lowest representation of Ali's wins, highest of his losses-& you cannot say "at least" 25% of his losses when an amateur when there is no indication there were likely more than 2/25%.
That in itself is a weak case, when you are considering very few losses against at least 100 wins when Ali was way smaller & between 14-18 years old!


You DO have a better point when you say Usyk is much better than K.M.
Although he deserved a title shot.
But that does not tell us IF Usyk does much better than Karl or not.
Or Ali, like Usyk, Ali, Fury & most great fighters, can & does step it up when pushed harder.

 

Usyk doesn't have a great HW resume and you're putting him up against ATGs. Yes, he may be able to beat them all, but I sincerely doubt it. He would compete against any pure boxer, but there's no way of knowing how he reacts to bludgeoning blows from Foreman for example.

 

If you actually wanted a debate, there's several guys who'd gladly oblige you. But clearly you don't want that.

How can anyone take you seriously when you type the above nonsense?

You don't even know what 'life and death' means.

Again, you'll happily just ignore the Briedis fight.

It doesn't matter how much any modern day fighter studied Ali.

Watching old footage and actually fighting him in real time would be two completely different things. That should be glaringly obvious.

No amount of study could have prepared Usyk or anyone else for Ali's unique style and mobility.

Ali's hand and foot speed would be a huge shock to Usyk, has he's never encountered anything on that level before.

You'd have to be absolutely delusional to believe that it wouldn't have been a technical and very cautious chess match.

Go and start a thread.

Only an idiot would believe that it wouldn't have been competitive.

 

He would certainly have a chance. He's a genius in the ring. But it's unrealistic to think that he'd be able to have beaten everyone. Again, I don't think think that any HW in history could go undefeated if they fought every other great HW.

 

Let’s see him finish his heavyweight career first. I believe analysis will shift if and when AJ stops him on Saturday.

 

Ali literally murders him but that is obvious.

 

Yes, but again, his fantasy opponents that have been put forward were also great.

Again, it doesn't matter how technically gifted he is, because at some point, he would face a style that he had an issue with.

Nobody at LW can match Loma for technical ability.

In terms of technical ability, he's out on his own.

Yet he now has 2 losses on his record.

Floyd Mayweather was undefeated and an incredible technician. Yet you wouldn't have favoured him over everyone throughout history at WW. Because even if he was the most skilled, sooner or later, he'd have ran into a horrible stylistic match up, like against Hearns.

Go and watch Usyk's fight with Briedis.

Go and watch that and then come back and tell me that you'd have favoured Usyk over every great HW of the past.

It's totally unrealistic.

 

Ike Ibeabuchi beats him bad. Ike knew how to deal with fast skilful undefeated southpaws as well. Ask Chris Boyd. AJ could do worse than study Ike Ibeabuchi versus Chris Byrd too see how his fellow Nigerian dealt with that southpaw and his trickery.

 

To be honest it's just biased that's why I'm not going to keep going back and forth wasting my time replying, theres a lot of assumptions being made about Usyk which I find crazy. With the lack of resume that Usyk has a Heavyweight.

And to actually use Holyfields losses to Byrd and Sultan, when Holyfield was completely shot and over age of 40. And then trying and say Moorer vs Holyfield 2 was "competitive". Despite Moorer being floored 5 times and rocked in almost every round, to try and spin a narrative that Holyfield struggles vs Southpaws, is just nonsense in all honesty and that's not being objective.

 

The guy’s a clown.