To you, do Usyk's cruiserweight wins count towards his status as a heavyweight great?

Yeah Uysk was apparently weighing pretty much near 210 in his cruiserweight fights.

But interesting because he has mentioned struggling with the increase of eating food to maintain 222 pounds at heavyweight.

 

It's Charr.

 

By that logic, if Usyk's run at heavyweight was a disaster, those loses would take away from his Cruiserweight legacy?

 

No not towards hw, but obviously p4p

 

Ive come to disagree with this position. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Holyfields cruiserweight opponents are the size of several past heavyweights champs and contenders depending how far you go back. Same with modern day light heavyweights. But the fact is Heavyweight has never had a size limit

Either the undisputed cruiserweight title run is it's own thing that adds to Usyks overall pfp legacy or it adds to his heavyweight legacy, despite the fact that almost all of his opponents did nothing at heavyweight. It can't be both

 

I think the question here isn't whether CWs are HW sized or not(they are) its whether those wins would have the same value if they were fighting at HW. High rated wins at CW are high rated wins at CW because those guys are fighting at CW and beat high ranked CWs. Their size shouldn't be the main question its how good they are as HWs. The bigger problem with CWs contending at HW isn't that CWs are too small its that CW is a HW B league and any top CW isn't going to be as good at the top level of HW.

Someone like Gassiev is a solid HW but at CW he was an undefeated champ before he fought Usyk. Hunter was also undefeated. Usyk deserves some credit for beating two borderline ranked HWs in the 12-20 range but only that. At CW they were much more then that. And thats the problem.

If we are being historically consistant every CW fight is a HW fight but those "CWs" were not gaining distinction from belts, rankings and accolades of a tweener division.

 

No, but I think him beating Joyce in the amateurs could qualify.

 

People take Holyfield's CW record into account when calling him great. His HW record is 26 (11)W-10L-2D .

5-3-1D in HW linear title fights...

 

But nobody takes about those achievements when mentioning his heavyweight legacy. Qawi, Ocasio, Parkey, De Leon, All of those top guys would qualify as heavyweights if you keep going back, yet when judge Holyfields heavyweight ranking historically, not a single one of those names are blurted out

 

Two different divisions. Why bother otherwise? HW legacy comes from HW fights. CW from CW. Overall legacy is from overall body of work.

 

I think it depends where those opponents end up fighting also.
Some of Evanders big CW wins were former LHWs in a lighter than now CW division

Usyk has wins over Hunter the current boxrec #1 rated American HW and current boxrec #11 world rated HW
And a win over
Gassiev the current #9 world rated HW
Now do you not think those wins now hold any value in their current division because Usyk beat them when they were all weighing a bit less?
Do you feel they could now warrant rematches as they are current top 15 HWs?

Due to them also stepping up to HW I think it holds up on those opponents

Usyk has beaten 6 of the current boxrec top 20 HWs and 2 of them twice

 

Usyk has wins over Hunter the current boxrec #1 rated American HW and current boxrec #11 world rated HW
And a win over
Gassiev the current #9 world rated HW
Now do you not think those wins now hold any value in their current division because Usyk beat them when they were all weighing a bit less?
Do you feel they could now warrant rematches as they are current top 15 HWs?

 

But the cruiserweight division is not the heavyweight division. The heavyweight division never had a limit, cruiserweights and light heavyweights have been winning against super heavyweights and vice versa for decades

Gassiev beat nobody in the heavyweight division to deserve that ranking, so the point still stands. Hunter lost to Forrest and his best win is Sergey Kuzmin over half a decade ago. But adding Hunter doesn't really do much does it ? It's just a fringe win if you want to add it to Usyks heavyweight resume. Fury and Briedis are by far Usyks best wins, and Fury doesn't stack up historically

 

Martin Bakole is Hunters best win