Who saved the heavyweight division. Oleksandr Usyk or Turki Alalshikh

Winning fights doesn't save a division. Making them does. Turki made it happen and both fighters had to agree to fight, not just Usyk. I say Turki.

 

Nobody cared about heavyweight boxing in till Tyson Fury saved it in 2015.

Then he had to comeback in 2018 because AJ & Wilder, the two men who we're allegedly reigning at that point were too scared to fight one another because they're both chinny bums with nothing but a punch. Fury cleaned up Wilder and would have loved to do the same to AJ but AJ kept falling over to midgets, Ruiz & Usyk.

 

In contrast to the previous post: Fury and Wilder being beaten, and now looking like they'll actually have to force their way back into belt contention, has helped the HW division - no end, IMO. Both Usyk and Turki played their part in that.

Joshua is also in the same boat, partly due to those two also.

Parker-Dubois is going to be like a breath of fresh air. And if the winner does fight Usyk - Usyk is at least in his champion's position on the back of 5 fights against the best of the division.

 

No one saved the HW division. It didn't need saving imo.

 

Neither. This era of HW has been awful and Usyks love of rematches is as responsible for that as anything else. This whole era has felt like its become the fandoms responsibility to pressure the fighters to fight. Its been toxic and dysfunctional and with any luck there will never be another era like it ever again.

Turki has gotten too much love for doing too little. Everyones putting the cart before the horse here.

 

since boxing is completely dead in most first world countries, the answer is no one.

 

Turki is making more fights happen that we want to see but that isn’t saving boxing, the fights are happening because of stupid money getting paid, the money is moving the fighters.
Usyk has saved the status of being the champion, he has brought a humbleness to boxing and with a great sense of humour, stoicism and integrity.
He even went to war, actually he didn’t he went to defend his country

 

Usyk & Fury...financiers generate expensive promos and big purses. Great fighters forge great legacies. Usyk would have collected all the belts OR made it clear with repeated call outs that he was the man if Fury didn't fight him.

Turkey is not necessary for this to happen. Did Don King start this thread? What the f***

 

It's Usyk

We see Don King get credit for the 90s but anyone who actually knows the details of it knows it was Holyfield being willing to make fights for glory rather than money.

Usyk-Fury got delayed until Usyk took a 70/30 split and called Tyson "greedy belly" ... Who is currently retired to get more money thrown at him.

Has Fury-AJ happened?

AJ-Wilder?

So what fights that we were bitching and crying about for years did Turkey make?

Cool, cool, but the HWs who used to holding things up are no longer holding things up though right ... oh ... Fury's retired as a clear negotiation tactic, again, and AJ's pulled out of a rematch with a champion to fight what high profile ticket mover again? Is it still TBA? I guess we can say Wilder's easier to deal with given his ass ain't even in the picture anymore ... oh **** he did just have a hard time working a deal with Shaw and went to Curtis ****ing Harper to get a fight made ... ... ...

So of the three HWs who were a problem who did Turkey get to stop being a ****? Not Wilder, not Fury, not Joshua.



Turkey's great, love what's happened to Ring, the cards are good, but nothing has really changed. Some scheduling, and some new faces but the same old story on the same old characters. Basically instead of sprinkling the unterclass across the year they stack regional fights under world fights on a Turki card and youse lose your **** without realizing just as much time is going by between anything really happening.



No disrespects to the money man but it's definitely Usyk just like Evander before him. Y'all be giving Turkey, King, and Arum credit for fighters willing to take a pay cut having a massive effect on a time frame.

 

You make some very good points and kind of swayed my opinion a bit.

What usyk has achieved and who he has fought in so few fights clearly show it is possible to make these fights, if a fighter is willing to.
It does seem that it’s mainly because usyk allows promoters to pay him way less than others (the market value) in order to get the fights he wants to achieve what he wishes to achieve. Credit to him. This is noble.

It’s a shame that in order for us to get the fights we want, one fighter has to be willing to concede a huge amount of the deal. I don’t think it’s fair at all but credit using for accepting the unfairness and still achieving greatness

 

I agree with the message,,,,100%