Boxing will take a hit of Bud, Beterbiev and Usyk retire undefeated

I love the spirit of your post and dont want to nitpick, I completely agree that these guys deserve their praises... but, outside of Usyk, Pacs career eclipses them all combined, imo,

I dont think its fair to taint Pacs legacy the way youre kinda doing in this post by lumping him in as a diva, and almost faulting him for being A side or for being a superstar or maybe alluding that he didnt do it the hard way.

Pac got the benefit of being a superstar because he put in the work year after year and division after division to become a superstar, by fighting HOFer after HOFer after HOFer and making the fights fans wanted to see. Something Beterbiev and Crawford havent done or havent had the opportunity to do.

Just because he fumbled the Mayweather fight, which was as much if not more Mayweathers fault, doesnt overshadow that he had an entire career of making the biggest and best fights for a career.

As for asterisks, Beterbiev, Crawford and Usyk have them too, just like Pac does. Only they have them in like half as many significant fights.

I just dont think its really putting the Pac/Mayweather era in its proper light. That era easily eclipses this one imo. Crawford has fought once a year since weve left 2019, practically an entire era has gone by of him doing that. Inoue is fighting people nobody cares about in fights hes -10,000 in, and Beterbiev just fought an actual legacy fight at 40 years of age.

Crawford and Beterbiev, as much as I like them I have to admit that with their lack of activity and their lack of making big fights happen, or lack of big fights available to them, havent really been that good for boxing, imo.

 

Interesting post, I agree that a sport can be better off when the torch is passed, and that its getting to the point now where these three will cast long shadows over the division. They are all getting to the age though, despite their good form, where beating them now will mean less than than their names suggest.

Main reason I replied though is I didnt realise theres been so few unbeaten champions in history? I know at heavyweight there was only Marciano right? But didnt realise it was that rare in the rest of boxing.

Ill have to go look for a list now of who they all were.

It has to be one of the rarest things in boxing then really lol.

That being said, I really doubt Beterbiev or Usyk will retire undefeated. Uysk seems set on fighting on, and at his age, style and division, just a matter of time before he loses to someone he would have beaten a year ago.

And Beterbiev could very well lose this Bivol rematch.

Crawford vs Canelo is still a possibility and Crawford could potentially lose that.

So I think theres still a long ways to go before any of these guys do get to join that rare company, but its an interesting topic.