Is Crawford the best fighter of this era?

I would say between Usyk and Crawford
However we may focus a bit too much on the "0" nowadays.
For me Usyk best win is Mairis Briedis

 

The Canelo win clinches it for Crawford.

 

Usyk for me.

Crawford is good. Very good, really. However, he has largely been in a relatively weak era. On paper his accomplishments are all time great, but when you scratch beneath the surface, his resume does not stand up to past greats. That's not Crawford's fault. He has pretty much fought everyone he could, but it still doesn't change the fact that his resume is very light compared to other greats.

As for the Canelo fight; it was a good result, but not great. Yes, he moved up in weight and beat a great fighter on paper. In reality, Bud was always huge for LW-WW where he has spent most of his career. He may have jumped up 3 weight divisions from where he has been fighting recently (WW), but he wasn't that much smaller than Canelo. Also, Canelo is nowhere near the fighter he was. The fight would not have been made if Canelo was still prime.

Canelo's tank is not what it was (it was never great). Stylistically, he's not the same fighter, either. In his prime, Canelo was a supreme counter puncher, with good head movement, and threw crisp combinations. For the past few years he has regressed to a largely single puncher loading up on his shots, has a basic high guard with not as much upper body movement, and has none of the subtly that once made him great. He is just too predictable these days and can't up the pace like he used to.

Outside of Canelo, Bud has Porter, Brook and Khan on his resume. Good fighters, but all at the end of their careers when Bud fought them, and Brook shouldn't have been fighting at WW. Spence is another very good win on paper, but post car crash Spence was not the same fighter as pre car crash Spence. All things considered, Gamboa and Postal are two of the best wins on Bud's resume.

Usyk, like Bud, beat the best at CW and HW. Bredis is a very good CW and would give most CW in history a good fight. However, it's at HW where Usyk has set himself apart. Yes, Fury, AJ and Dubois are no all time greats, but when you factor in the huge weight, height, reach, power and durability difference between CW and HW then Usyk's accomplishments take on a new level.

 

Fury had been binging for years, though, and the Ngannou fight showed just how far he'd fallen; he shaved years off his career between 2015 and 2018. Usyk beat a version of him that was on the slide, but it was still a great win for a career cruiserweight. We can agree to disagree. I don't think the AJ that fought Whyte or Wlad was the same guy who fought Usyk; he was extremely pedestrian, and Usyk barely got out of second gear. Canelo didn't win the first one, but he did enough to get the second, I think. The first was a robbery, but the 2nd could've gone either way.

 

To me AJ likely even peaked around the Usyk fight. He looked as quick, sharp and well conditioned as ever. The issue was that Usyk was killing AJ with feints. He had simply never seen an offense anywhere near as sophisticated as Usyk's offense.

 

It's going to be him, Usyk or Inoue for the post Pac/Floyd era. They all hava time left, so let's wait and see. As of right now he is probably narrowly nr 1 for me, but that could change quickly since especially Inoue is more active.

 

Crawford really puts the p4p concept under new scrutiny. On the one hand he's been the champ at 135, 140, 147 and 168 (undisputed in all but 135) plus held a strap at 154. That's extraordinary.

On the other hand he's never been the substantially smaller guy, almost always the bigger one. So it's a bit how you look at p4p. Floyd and Pac moved up to face legitilmately bigger guys, but Bud's achievment has rather been to fight at lower weights than his natural one.

 

Canelo is just name value yet Fury isn't? Canelo is FAR more accomplished, had better recent wins, held every belt unlike Fury, was ranked P4P, and didn't have any humiliating blemishes like the Ngannou fight (the fight immediately preceeding his fights with Usyk) on his record. They're the same age and Canelo had wear and tear but so did Fury, along with having abused alcohol and drugs in his career and ballooning up in weight constantly. Did Fury look better against Usyk than Canelo did against Crawford? Sure, but much of that can be put down to how well Crawford performed.

Also you say this as if Usyk didn't move up from the division directly below heavyweight. Plenty of cruisers have moved up and had success at heavyweight, none as dominantly as Usyk, but still. Cruisers were heavyweights not that long ago in the grand scheme of things. An undisputed cruiser becoming undisputed at heavy and beating super heavy champs is not unheard of. Not nearly as unheard of as somebody who won their first title at lightweight (not as a teenager or anything, but as a grown man) becoming undisputed at super middle weight.

 

Have to go with Usyk due to better resume and fighting in stronger divisions. Usyk's Cruiserweight sweep was in an elite division.

 

I do find it a little bit odd how "TC being the bigger guys" somehow DQ's him from the discussion because Uysk fought larger HWs. If that's the case, how do we use Fury to elevate Usyk's resume when Fury was larger then EVERYONE he fought? All Fury did was "pick on little guys" and STILL has a weak ass resume. Food for thought....

 

could find no lies in this post.

 

We'll have to see how Inoue's career plays out. He just 12-0'd the #1 contender. Generally speaking, he's fought more live bodies than Bud. Nakatani and 126 awaits...

 

LOL

 

I was thinking the same thing. Can't forget about the Monster. Inoue be like, " HOLD MY SAPPARO". LOL