The Fall of the current Heavyweight Division

Father time is undefeated. His record is something like 117,000,000,000-0.

 

It's the nature of the beast, fighters age, they come and go. Seven years is a long time.

 

This happens with every era.

The champions and contenders get old, lose more often, and then retire.

Its the circle of life.

If anything the current era tried to hang on for too long. The only man that stopped them from outstaying their welcome was Usyk.

I would not consider Usyk done.

Yes AJ, Fury, Wilder, and Whyte are all most definitely done though!

 

Yes, they fighters of the last era are slowly shuffling off the board. Its a natural thing and now that they are leaving we will see some space for the younger guys coming through.

The older champs sucked up all the attention, money and clout in the division, but with them moving on more of it will go to the new guys as they come through. Can't wait to see what the new generation looks like but it is starting to shape up.

 

Nim not sure of the point of this thread

It's not a downfall, it's just moving on

And Uysk doesn't look done to me

 

Well, yeah. They are all old, now. But we've seen the rise or rehabilitation of...

Ituama
Parker
Kabeyal
Dubois
Hrgovic
Torrez
Ejagba

Maybe we can even get Jalalov in there, somewhere.

Division will be fine.

 

What the hell!

It started out like an interesting post but you lost me at 'usyk keeps asking for extensions' and he 'cant take the belts hostage'. Ridiculous. It's the first time he has asked for that as far as I know and pales in comparison to others. Have you seen canelo's maneuvering? It's super common.

To spin this like it's a character trait of usyk's is beyond disrespectful. I want him to defend his belts too, or be stripped like I want that for any other champion, too. But I don't have to fantasize criticisms to be able to put him in some argument about other fighters.

You just can not put usyk in that row of fighters with this downfall spin and be consistent. Probably hence the 'asking for extensions' argument. Beterbiev was injured between every two fights... Like people criticize bivol for getting a back injury fixed...

 

I am of the opinion that the division is quite good, quite a number of good fights can be put together...

 

The next era has already begun. It will need to stand on its own.

The last one had a shaky start. They all don't begin and end quite so neatly as the Holmes-Tyson eras ended and began.

This last era seemed to "want" to begin around 2011, with the rise of Robert Helenius and Derek Chisora. Helenius was knocking off the former names (Peter, Liakhovich, Brewster ... like young fighters do) and was generating excitement. People were really high on both of them.

But Helenius suffered a debilitating shoulder injury he never really bounced back from, and Chisora was rushed into fights with Helenius, Vitali and Haye.

In the end, they were both more transitional fighters.

The last generation really began with the emergence of Fury, Wilder, and Joshua around 2013/2014. Parker got lumped in with them, but, being younger, he always seemed greener and didn't quite fit with the other three.

In a normal heavyweight situation, the younger man, Parker, may have been the one to not only outlast but retire the aging big three, which he began by outpointing Wilder.

But, somehow, Usyk dropped from the sky and took Parker's spot, knocking off Joshua and Fury. Then the even younger Dubois finished Joshua off.

So, Parker continues to be lost. Maybe he'll get his shot at Usyk. Maybe not.

I don't see Parker, Agit Kabayel and Bakhodir Jalolov (already in their 30s) dominating the next era for any stretch. They already only have a few years left in their primes. They seem more transitional (if Jalolov becomes a factor at all), taking us from one big era to another.

Now it's up to Daniel Dubois, Moses Ituama, and younger folks who are currently in their 20s to make the new era their own and become the faces of the division for the better part of a decade.

But they need to create their own history. Who will be the dominant fighters in the next generation? Will the rest of the decade and the start of the next be remembered as the Ituama era? The Dubois era? The JOSHUA EDWARDS era?

We'll see how it shakes out.

 

Every generation of fighter falls. The Golden age 70s could be made to sound depressing too, if you detail right until the end of the careers of the stars.

 

Right. Ali fought until 1981. So did Frazier.

Lyle, Young and Norton were all basically done after the Cooney demolitions.

Those performances aren't what people think of when they think of those fighters from the 1970s.

 

Usyk looks like he can easily fight into his 40s.

 

The division is in fact not that bad , with young itauma , kabayel and parker we have interesting fighters and potential fights .

The saudis are ready to host the best matches possible , all could be good .

The only problem is , hate to say this , usyk who is sitting on the belts only to be called "champion" in ukraine . Not ready to defend them and not ready to vacate them . This results the entire division cannot fight for a world title , the other guys cannot fight each other for the belts .

When usyk would not block this , the era could be really interesting .

 

You forgot AJ’s nail in the coffin was lost to Dubois in brutal fashion