Was Usyk Unbeatable At Cruiserweight ?

“Big” James batters him. Unsophisticated amateur by comparison.

 

I don't consider a fight a cruiserweight bout when one of the contestant's weighs in 30 hours before the fight at 207 or 208 pounds.

I mean give me a break.

Usyk was a heavyweight when he turned pro. He was fighting big heavyweights in the paid WSB bouts where he faced Joe Joyce, Junior Fa and Majidov before "officially" going pro. In his second "official" pro fight, Usyk was 206 and his opponent was 208.

"You" may not consider those "heavyweight" fights ... but a fight between a 206 pounder and a 208 pounder sure as hell wasn't a cruiserweight fight. (Joe Joyce was never a cruiserweight, that's for damn sure.). I mean, was Deontay Wilder's pro debut at cruiserweight? Because Wilder and his opponent weighed less than those guys in Wilder's debut.

Hell, Holyfield didn't weigh that much when he defended the World Heavyweight Title against Bowe the first time. He was only 205.

Usyk was a heavyweight who moved down. DeLeon was a lightweight who moved up. Facts are facts.

 

Can you point me to the part of any of my posts where I said a fight between a 206lbs & 208lbs pound fighter is a Cruiserweight contest?

For Usyk's debut both boxers weighed 200.5lbs, which is the actual figure I quoted. In his 3rd fight Usyk again weighed 200.5lbs, whilst his opponent weighed 197.25lbs. I consider these as slightly over the weight non-title fights between 2 x Cruiserweights. When a Middleweight prospect weighs 161lbs early in their career in a non-title fight, I still consider them a Middleweight.

If you consider Usyk's fights contested at 200.5lbs as Heavyweight contests, then that is a perfectly reasonable interpretation & much more relevant to the point, as I've already said twice before & three times now, so I'll bold this so you don't miss it - it is irrelevant to Usyk's standing at Cruiserweight. Usyk's first 9 contests have no bearing on how he is ranked in an all time context. None.

For argument's sake, lets go with your interpretation, Usyk only had 11 fights at Cruiserweight. He is still, beyond reasonable dispute, one of the two greatest Cruiserweights of all time based on the quality of opposition he beat, and with the exception of Bredis & at a push Hunter, dominated.

Let me ask you 2/3 x questions:

1a) Do you agree that the majority of boxing fans/posters consider Usyk as one of the two greatest Cruiserweights of all time? i.e. if one of us were to post a thread with a poll, perhaps with a friendly side bet, naming as many boxers who officially competed in Cruiserweight division from history as you'd care to include, Usyk would get either the most or the 2nd most votes;1b) If so, why do you think that is?

2) Do you understand that, whilst DeLeon moving up in weight would impact his P4P ranking relative to Usyk's, it has absolutely no bearing on how their ranking at Cruiserweight?

 

Greg, you keep changing your criteria with every post.

First you said he was the second greatest cruiserweight because of his record at the weight. I pointed out his record at the weight was only 11-0. Then you said who else won four titles at the weight and who beat better opponents at the weight?

And I pointed out that DeLeon was the Ring Champion at the weight before their were even four belts (OR THREE). You can't unify four belts IF THERE AREN'T FOUR BELTS to begin with.

Joe Louis never won FOUR belts. Ali never won FOUR belts. Larry Holmes never won four belts and never unified anything.

And now you're asking who would get the most votes in a totally separate poll that isn't what this thread is about.

I think Usyk is one of the best cruiserweights ever. Is he number two? Maybe. Maybe not.

Holyfield has different accomplishments than Usyk. Usyk has different accomplishments than DeLeon. Haye has different accomplishments than all of them, too. They all have different accomplishments.

If you tailor all your questions around one person's accomplishments, that's just saying this is the ONLY criteria for greatness in a division. Nothing else matters.

I can set the criteria differently by picking another fighter's strengths.

* How many cruiserweight champions were named RING champion MULTIPLE times? Usyk and Holyfield weren't. (Winning RING titles a couple times in the heavyweight division seems to be a big deal, though. DeLeon did that multiple times at cruiserweight. )

* How many cruiserweight champions defended it over 10 years?

Winning, losing, regaining and defending belts for a decade at heavyweight seems to be a big deal. Usyk and Holyfield weren't even in the division that long, let alone champions over a decade. Nobody else can say that.

Are you stuck on the fact that DeLeon wasn't undefeated? Well, if being undefeated was the sole criteria, Rocky Marciano would be the easy #1 heavyweight of all time.

* How many cruiserweight champions fought TWO World (LINEAL) Heavyweight champions at cruiserweight? Only DeLeon (against Leon and Evander). Nobody else did. And fighting guys who won World heavyweight titles is a bigger deal (to me) than fighting freaking Michael Hunter and the like.

* How many Lightweights moved up to win the cruiserweight title FOUR times? Nobody, and I mean NOBODY else other than DeLeon can say that. How many lightweights have even attempted such a thing?

Change the criteria ... and Usyk strikes out. Easy as that.

On the other hand, how many heavyweights have moved down to cruiserweight and tried to win titles, like Usyk did? (Quite a few tried.) Not too many LIGHTWEIGHTS managed it, though.

As far as polls go, I don't care what "polls" on this board say. There were polls on this board that had Butterbean beating Wilder. Polls around here don't mean anything.

The thread is was Usyk unbeatable at cruiserweight? No. I don't think so. Just my opinion.

Were the guys Usyk fought at the weight the BEST ever? No. I don't think there's a single hall of famer between them. If DeLeon, who was a multiple-time Ring Cruiserweight Champion, a guy who defended cruiserweight straps for a decade, a guy who beat a former World Heavyweight Champion as a cruiserweight, isn't a hall of famer, freaking Usyk's opponents certainly weren't.

The cruiserweights are a weird division. It's the only one where the weight limit was radically changed decades after the division began. And may change again and go back down.

I don't exalt Usyk like others do because I thought he should've fought as a heavyweight the whole time. So should most of the guys often held up as his great competition at the weight. (Hell, Michael Hunter was a SUPER heavyweight in the amateurs.)

Clearly, Usyk could've competed with heavyweights the whole time like Wilder did, and Tyson did, and Mercer, Morrison, Golota, Tua, Brewster, Ibragimov and on and on and on did. They all fought in the same division as amateurs as Usyk.

But Usyk got a taste of what fighting big heavyweights was like in the WSB, and, IMO, he bailed and moved down because the cruiserweight limit wasn't 190 anymore and it would be easier to win there than fighting a Klitschko for a title. That's my prejudice against him.

I don't feel the need to praise a 201-pound gold medalist for his 200-pound cruiserweight run any more than I feel the need to praise Oscar De La Hoya for picking up a 130-pound belt after winning the gold at 132 in the amateurs. It's an easy pick-up.

Clearly, Oscar could've gone straight for a lightweight title. But he could dry out and win a super featherweight belt first. So he did. I don't think that's anything to brag about.

 

I got about a quarter of the way through that, saw you were all over the place and didn't read the rest.

I haven't changed my criteria once. Uysk is a consensus top 2 all time CW because of his record at that weight. Most people would understand his record is more than just his number of fights.

Langford and Greb fought at HW and rank above Ali and Louis p4p, yet Ali and Louis are the consensus top 2 HWs of all time.

What division you think Usyk should have fought in is irrelevant to his all time ranking at CW. What divisions other than CW DeLeon fought in is immaterial to his ranking based on his CW record. This is basic stuff you seem either incapable or unwilling to comprehend.

Usyk and Holyfield are the consensus top 2 CWs of all time. You can either understand why or not, that's up to you.

 

Then I guess that's it for you. Don't bother asking me anything else.

 

"DeLeon was a professional lightweight."

Whether you're an amateur lightweight or a professional lightweight at 17 is academic in my eyes. Had De Leon been an amateur at the time he'd have weighed the same. Usyk was fighting at amateur middleweight when he was as old as 19, so what. At 20 De Leon's first fight weight was 178 (cruiser), throughout his career after that he always weighed more than 180 but no more than 197 until he was 33+. De Leon was not a natural lightweight fighting at cruiserweight, he hadn't been a natural lightweight since he was 17.

Looking at the bouts from his 25 fight official cruiser run for which he have full information, De Leon was outweighed by his opponent in 12 out of 21. That puts him on the smaller side of the division but not by much. De Leon was a normal sized cruiserweight in his day, especially from age 23 onwards.

"DeLeon fought Holyfield for all the marbles. Usyk didn't. Usyk fought Gassiev for all the marbles."

De Leon lost every round against 190 lbs Holyfield and got stopped in 8 in his only attempt to win the other belts. As a mature fighter he'd previously been stopped by Gordon in 2 and lost to Ratliff, he'd go on to draw with Nelson and lose inside the distance to M. Duran.

Usyk fought all of his championship fights in the backyards of the opponent, he cleaned out the division beating every other champion or serious contender, not losing once. He didn't become champion a bunch of times because he didn't lose a bunch of times and need to regain the title. De Leon never put together the title defence streak that Usyk did, nor did he beat opponents who were nearly as esteemed. Usyk-Gassiev was virtually 50-50 oddswise and Usyk shut Gassiev out in Russia to become the first four belt undisputed cruiser champion, which needless to say is far, far better than De Leon's showing against Holyfield.

"Usyk never beat anyone at cruiserweight who was a former Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion, let alone stop them."

I don't think a 12-3-2 Spinks is a very good win when you examine his record but you're right that you can make fighters look much better or worse depending on the metric you choose. But the only debate people have for best cruiser is Holyfield or Usyk.

"But Usyk got a taste of what fighting big heavyweights was like in the WSB, and, IMO, he bailed and moved down because the cruiserweight limit wasn't 190 anymore and it would be easier to win there than fighting a Klitschko for a title. That's my prejudice against him."

Usyk dominated all of the big heavyweights he fought in the WSB, there's no reason to believe that his experiences there worried him at all. If anything it would have given him even more confidence that he could beat super-heavyweights in full pro fights.

Your original theory was that Joshua was going to walk through Usyk in 1-2 rounds because Usyk was massively overhyped, past his best at 34 or 35, had been hiding down at cruiser because he knew he couldn't compete at heavyweight and was coming for a paycheck.

There are several reasons why fighters around the 200 lbs mark would choose to fight at cruiser, at least initially. One may be legacy: perhaps Usyk wanted to be a rare cruiser-heavy two weight champion. Maybe Usyk wanted guaranteed mandatory status with the WBO before moving up to avoid problems with ducking and boxing politics. It could have been that Usyk was happy to have his friend and compatriot Wlad as heavyweight champion and had no wish to dethrone him, or maybe Usyk was worried about losing due to Wlad's A-side advantages. Very often it makes more sense for 2nd (Hunter) or 3rd (Zack Page) rate cruisers to move up earlier in their careers.

 

For God's sake I never said he was a "natural Lightweight."

And the first sentence in Georges Carpentier's bio in the International Boxing Hall of Fame LITERALLY BEGINS:

Perhaps the greatest European fighter of all time, Georges Carpentier competed in virtually every weight class. Carpentier's formidable skills allowed him to become a professional in 1908 at just fourteen years old, fighting as either a flyweight or a bantamweight.

My whole life, when people talk about Carpentier, I've heard them talk about how he fought in nearly every division.

Maybe you should write to the Boxing Hall of Fame and let them know that you don't care what anyone's record is when they turn pro at 14, because by the time Carpentier was 20, he was a light heavyweight. So who cares what he weighed when he turned pro.

See how that goes.

Unbelievable.

DeLeon turned pro at lightweight won the Cruserweight belt FOUR TIMES. HE was the World/Lineal Cruiserweight Champion twice. (Actually should've been three times, but the Ring was slow in recognizing the division.) And he made six official defenses of the RING/World Cruiserweight title.

How many times did Holyfield defend the RING/World Cruiserweight title? NEVER. How many times did Usyk defend it? ONCE.

In most divisions, winning the Ring/World recognition is kind of a big deal. And it's a big deal when people say Usyk and Holyfield did it at cruiserweight, but when you say DeLeon made six times as many defenses of the World Cruiserweight title as they did combined, you guys 'poo poo' it.

Holyfield didn't become the RING champion at cruiserweight because he unified all the belts. He became the Ring Cruiserweight champion because he knocked off Carlos DeLeon, who was the reigning World Champion.

 

Carlos DeLeon never fought a championship fight in his hometown, either.

Carlos DeLeon made SIX TIMES as many RING/World Cruiserweight Title defenses as Usyk. (Six for DeLeon, one for Usyk.)

DeLeon successfully defended cruiserweight belts 11 times. Usyk successfully defended them six times.

Usyk didn't lose at cruiserweight, and Holyfield didn't, but I don't see people saying Rocky Marciano is the #1 heavyweight all-time because he never lost.

In fact, people tend to rate Joe Louis #1 because he held the title for 11 years and made 25 defenses. More than anyone.

Between Usyk, Holyfield and DeLeon, who held the Ring/World Cruiserweight title the longest and made the most Ring/World Cruiserweight defenses?

Hint: It wasn't Usyk or Holyfield.

 

Everyone who says Usyk is the best or second best cruiserweight ever says its because Usyk won four belts at cruiserweight.

But that's a totally arbitrary stat that relates only to Usyk.

That was Usyk's accomplishment at the weight.

That's just as random as saying Joe Louis will be the #1 heavyweight of all-time until someone beats his record and reigns for 12 years and makes 26 title defenses.

Or no one can become the #1 heavyweight all time unless they surpass Rocky Marciano's 49-0 record and go 50-0 at heavyweight and retire as undefeated champ.

Or someone can't surpass Ali and become the #1 heavyweight of all time unless he wins the WORLD heavyweight title FOUR times and becomes a bigger global star than Ali.

Everyone's accomplishments are different. Like I said earlier, Holyfield's accomplishments are different than Usyk's, Usyk's are different than Haye's, and theirs are different than DeLeon's and Virgil Hill's and everyone else's.

Saying "well, to be the best, you have to unify four belts" when the IBF and the WBO organizations weren't even a thought in anyone's heads when DeLeon first became champ is ludicrous.

You weigh the "often different" accomplishments of everyone, and choose which ones mean more in your opinion.

Some may think:
* Fighting your way up the divisions from Lightweight to Cruiserweight,
* Beating a former World Heavyweight Champion at cruiserweight,
* Winning cruiserweight titles four different times,
* Defending cruiserweight belts over 10 years,
* Being a two-time Ring/World Cruiserweight champion,
* Making the most Ring/World Cruiserweight title defenses,
* And losing your World Cruiserweight Title to a future World Heavyweight Champion ...

Isn't too shabby.

Maybe even better than being a heavyweight who moved down to cruiserweight to pick up some belts who never made nearly as many defenses.

 

I don’t think anyone is unbeatable in any class. But he’s probably about as close to it as any cruiser has ever been

 

You have to admit that IS a pretty good and high standard

 

It is a good and high standard.

I think Lennox Lewis winning the Olympic Gold Medal over a future Hall of Fame World Heavyweight Champion (Bowe) in his last amateur fight ... defeating every man he faced as a pro ... and retiring as World Champion after stopping a future Hall of Fame World Heavyweight Champ (Klitschko) ...

Is a pretty good and high standard, too.

Joe never accomplished that. Neither did Ali. Neither did anyone.

Everyone has their own personal accomplishments. Which accomplishments you hold in higher regard will likely change over the years as new people accomplish different, impressive things you haven't seen someone else do.

 

All true

 

Leon Spinks won the Olympic Gold Medal. Beat arguably the greatest heavyweight champion in boxing history Muhammad Ali ... only 13 months after turning pro ... in his eighth pro fight to become the World Heavyweight champion himself. Leon also stopped the #1 heavyweight contender Bernardo Mercado, stopped two-time heavyweight title challenger Alfredo Evangelista. Had two draws against top 10 contenders Scott Ledoux and Eddie "The Animal" Lopez. And his only losses had come against arguably two of the three greatest heavyweight champions ever (Ali and Holmes) and a future heavyweight champ Coetzee.

And Leon did all that in 15 pro fights.

It was a goddamn amazing run to that point.

DeLeon beating Leon Spinks when DeLeon only weighed 187 pounds (when Leon was expected to move down and take over the division) was an excellent win. Leon was the WBC #1 contender at cruiserweight. He was a former world heavyweight champion. Carlos was coming off his shock title loss to former heavyweight S.T. Gordon (who would also beat Trevor Berbick).

DeLeon's win over Spinks sent Leon into retirement for a couple years. 'Neon' Leon was never the same again after that.

And it earned DeLeon a rematch with S.T. Gordon, who DeLeon all but shut out to regain the title. If Leon had won, he'd have gotten the title shot.

Huge win.