Anyone surprised that Usyk totally outshone Lomachenko?

Lomachenko was more avoided, more of a victim of A-side bias (only lost one close fight legitimately) and mismanaged his career (partly due to arrogance/overconfidence).

Some of it is Loma's fault: he may well have been unbeatable at 130 until he aged sufficiently, potentially picking up wins over Davis and Stevenson if they didn't avoid him. He also didn't have to base himself in America like GGG, Kovalev and Korobov.

This is why career management is so important. In some cases it's the difference between being considered an ATG P4P fighter (which is what Byrd would have been if he snagged titles at 175 and 190 before his HW career and retired before the Oquendo fight) and no making the HOF.

 

I'd give them similar grades when they were making pro debuts, but It was clear that Usyk had the "it" factor that Loma lacked when he dominated Gassiev.

Usyk is a Ukrainian fighter who snached the belts of a Russian fighter in Russia. He's the guy who snatched the belts of the golden child of UK in UK. So the excuse of Loma having the decks stacked against him(in comparison to Usky only) doesn't hold much water.

Loma is the flashy one, but Usyk is the more complete fighter. I think I've said this here before, but does anyone believe that Usyk would lose to Marco Huck(who fights just as dirty as Salido did) in Germany or anywhere else in the world, had he gotten a shot at him in his second pro fight?

Absolutely not.

 

Chris Byrd would have been an ATG lmao.

I'm the biggest Byrd apologist on this whole forum but that is ludicrous.

 

I'm talking about appearances rather than whether he would have deserved it.

It's feasible or even probable that Byrd could have won titles at 175 and 190, he beat two cruiser titlists early in his career. Say he does that before he moves up to HW and becomes a three weight champion. Finishes his career 36-2 having just schooled Holyfield for the IBF title to become the No.1 American heavyweight, retiring with pre-Klitschko era halo. Because he wouldn't have all of the bad performances and losses that followed (seven of his last nine fights no less), people would remember his career more fondly and give him more credit for beating Vitali and defend Lewis's duck less. And as the Holyfield fight would have been his last, people would consider it a post-prime win for Byrd rather than just a post-prime loss for Holyfield. Given he made his debut weighing 169 lbs as a 22 year old (that's 3 lbs lighter than a 20 year old Moorer, who lasted 30 seconds against Tua), he may well have been considered a P4P ATG.

 

Who does he beat at LHW? The titles were all with Jones and DM and he doesn't beat those at LHW.

CW had zero prestige once Holyfield left.

His IBF run was what it was.

There's no path for Byrd being an ATG without him beating Wlad.

Being 3 weight means nothing, just ask Broner.

 

Were Jones and DM really the only champions during that period? In the 7+ years between his debut in 1993 and his fight against Vitali I suspect Byrd could have picked up a title at LHW and cruiser. Or had a run as a titlist at cruiser. If cruiser had "zero prestige once Holyfield left" why did it have any prestige (assuming it did) when he was there? I think it gained most of its prestige in retrospect, in large part due to Holyfield's success at HW. Did the quality of cruiser contenders suddenly fall through the floor after he moved up? Broner's career is regarded as being manufactured, this wouldn't have been the case for Byrd. Holyfield gets a lot of credit specifically for being a "two weight world champ" and "a cruiser who competed with the best heavies". Haye gets more credit than he should, I think in large part because of his cruiser run (even though it was lacklustre). Byrd would have been the 2nd man to be a cruiser-heavy champ (only 3 now) or a unique LHW-cruiser-HW champ.

Another point is Vitali getting Wlad to avenge his loss to Byrd would have been more heavily criticised if Byrd hadn't fought on post-Holyfield.

Even if you disagree that Byrd could have been considered a P4P ATG had he been a two or three weight champ and retired after beating Holyfield, do you contest that he'd have made the HOF had he done that? Or even just retiring after beating Holyfield. 41-5-1 looks a lot worse than 36-2 and he'd already secured his three marquee wins, the 5.5 years post-Holyfield massively damaged his legacy.

 

DM unified the belts in 97, Byrd only turned pro in 93. He certainly isn't beating Maske of Hill before 97. And he isn't beating DM or Jones after 97.

It didn't have prestige before Holy left, but Holy unifying the division completely gave him prestige. Byrd on paper would be favoured over any CW who was a title holder in the mid to late 90s. So let's say he did that, and fully unified CW so he has a rep ATM like a Haye, Mormeck or Bell and people maybe consider if he should be in the top ten p4p list.

In 99 he still loses to Ike after moving up. In 00 he still loses to Wlad after beating Vitali.

But then he retires when Lewis retires, after a controversial victory over Fres.

That harms his legacy much more than what happened in real life.

In real life he had 50/50 fights with Golota, McCline and Williamson and went into the rematch against Klitschko as the highest rated HW in the world.

Had he retired when you say he looks very manufactured, stealing a paper title and retiring after beating old Holy and scraping by Fast Fres, never reaching his potential and never receiving his credit.

Byrd's problem is to be great in his era he had to better than Wlad, and he wasn't. No amount of management changes that.

Does he duck Wlad, and fight Ruiz and Rahman to unify WBA/WBC/IBF maybe, but chances are he doesn't emerge from both fights without losing to one of them. And what kind of legacy would be ducking the man who dominated you 5 years earlier. Maybe he then defends against Jones and Toney hoping Wlad loses a final eliminator, or hoping he loses a WBO mandatory defence.

There's no path to Byrd being an ATG imo, not whilst Wlad is active.

And I rate Byrd more than most.

 

"Byrd on paper would be favoured over any CW who was a title holder in the mid to late 90s. So let's say he did that, and fully unified CW so he has a rep ATM like a Haye, Mormeck or Bell and people maybe consider if he should be in the top ten p4p list."

If Byrd had fully unified cruiser that would put him above Haye and co. because they weren't undisputed. So maybe he's top 10 P4P already.

"But then he retires when Lewis retires, after a controversial victory over Fres."

That's not optimal. He could've retired after Lewis fought Vitali instead of him.

"Had he retired when you say he looks very manufactured"

Disagree. He'd have fought Wlad, Vitali, Ibeabuchi, Tua and Holyfield having started his career weighing 169 lbs, beating three of them. Plus Vitali not rematching him and Lewis not fighting him, with Byrd retiring after being unable to secure fights with them just before he turned 33.

 

I think the Lopez loss has hurt Lomas legacy.. but I think in retrospect it won't be that much of a bad loss because Lopez will end up as a WW by the end of next year.. & he's still young too so maybe even higher... & it's clear that Loma wasn't operating on full capacity that night as well, shoulder etc... but it's history now anyway... some of the greatest fighters of all time have losses it's not that much of a big deal.. & he whooped Kambosos who had Teos number... it was clear from the beginning though that Loma wasn't as effective as a lightweight.. but you have to respect that he tried to challenge himself and a lot of Fighters don't do that, they are comfortable getting the easy route.. his run at LW has been exceptional.. Linares, Pedraza, Crolla, Campbell, Lopez, Nakatani, Commey, Ortiz, Haney, Kambosos.. Haney fight was a bad decision. A real bad one. Loma won that fight. But like I said in an earlier post that's the chance he took when he signed up to the American system. I would like to see Loma fight one more time but if he chooses to retire I wouldn't blame him now. He's old for a LW. Huge fan of both men, but yes Usyk has achieved more in the end.

 

Loma could have EASILY become undisputed at 126 and 130. There isn't anyone who was fighting in those classes at the time that I'd favor over him.

 

Byrd got knocked down and won a controversial decision over Cruiserweight Arthur Williams there's no evidence he would've been great at Cruiserweight. And there's certainly some Cruiserweights that could've beaten him had he stayed and campaigned at Cruiserweight like Gomez, Jirov.

His short Heavyweight title reign was filled with controversial decisions that you could make an argument that he lost 3 of them to Golota, McCline, Oquendo, most felt he was very fortunate vs Golota, Oquendo, especially I had Byrd losing both of those fights.

Byrd was good and I give him more credit for beating Vitali than most people do. But he's not quite on Usyk's level for me he could never become a great he didn't show he could be a stand out Cruiserweight. And there was simply better Heavyweights than Byrd who he couldn't beat to be come great like Wladimir obviously and Lewis.

And if you transported Byrd to this era now and he had Usyk's same Heavyweight opponents would he have the same success ? For me no.

 

Just watched this where some truth bombs landed about Loma’s ducks:

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