Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk vs. Ricardo Verhoeven & Frank Sanchez vs. Richard Torrez Jr. RBR.

Agreed. Most fans think he would have just been another guy in K1 during the 1990s and 2000s. Maybe capable of upsetting one of those great heavyweights from time to time, but he would in a lower tier than fighters like Hoost, Aerts, Hari, Schilt, etc, when they were in their prime. Rico is kind of like Wladimir Klitschko. A dominant, well-respected champion who reigned over a weak division, and has no real standout wins over any prime historically great fighters. An ancient Badr nearly destroyed him twice before his decrepit body gave out.

To compare Rico to guys like Petrosyan, Souwer, Masato and Buakaw is an insult.

 

Is that not because science has evolved to the point where for "High performance" we've realised that Muscle can actually result in more negatives than "Fat"?

Just look at Fury and Joshua. Fury is significantly more "Fat" than Joshua, all over his body, yet Fury is also the largest and most fluid fighter in the Division comparative to his height. As your physical weight and size increases, I think Science is in a position now where the balance between Muscle vs Fat has been shifted. Previous it was always about Muscle, muscle and more muscle, now it's not.

Andy Ruiz is another interesting example of this. His handspeed in this division is crazy, yet he's probably got the highest BMI in the division. I'm not sure him gaining muscle at the expense of losing fat would necessarily make him more "Dangerous" than he is/has been, because it would likely reduce his handspeed.

 

Cardio was better; you can at least say that without that snark. You could have said, "Old school fighters are basically cruiserweights, so of course they have better cardio," which would be a good argument, but you can't concede a point. Too focused on "winning" an argument.

 

I agree with you, but most old fighters understood this. Holmes and Frazier had fat. There are some exceptions, like Ken Norton, but Ken Norton could go 15 rounds no problem.

However, most modern fighters now are too fat.

 

Usyk needs to retire. These crossover fights are entertaining and all but it's obvious with the Fury and Usyk fights they are a sign of a fighter who's basically mentally checked out of the game and simply looking to make some money. If Usyk still had the hunger he wouldn't have entertained such a fight and wouldn't of shown up clearly out of shape and would have made a fight with either Kabayel, Wardley or Itauma instead of this side show fight.

 

Here comes everyone writing off Usyk. I swear people never learn. The guy clearly didn’t take his fight seriously. And fought a guy there was almost no boxing tape on. Usyk will take a real HW serious next time out. And now there’s tape on Rico. Put him in with Dubious or something next and he probably gets sent to another dimension inside 5 rounds.

 

You very well could be right, but that hunched over stance isn't how Rico fights. He used a completely different style than he's ever fought with before specifically for this fight with Usyk. Rico normally fights tall and makes use of his reach. He obviously had a good reason for that adjustment. So, tape won't exactly reveal too much to future opponents if he decides to box again. But they'll at least know not to underestimate him. Something everyone should have taken to heart after Fury's performance against Ngannou.

 

Kickboxing was way more entertaining back then, but it was also more of a circus. I mean, one of the top kickboxers of the 90's-00's, Ernesto Hoost, lost to a bodybuilder (Bob Sapp). Twice!

You also had the Hongman Choi giant giving close fights to, or beating, top kickboxers.

 

Soviet schooled fighters cannot handle becoming old.

 

The officiating in both those fights was atrocious from what I remember. The refs let Sapp run Hoost over like it was an MMA fight which completely disturbed Hoost's rhythm. If those fights had been officiated properly, I don't believe the results would have been the same.

 

Sapp was a freak of nature. He almost beat the best MMA fighter in the world at that time also. You seem to be disputing the K1 era was the peak of kickboxing? lol.

 

They struggle on the inside as well. Andre Ward was right about that. I love the Soviet style. It's beautiful to watch. But it does have a glaring weakness at close range. Usyk had trouble with a bruising fighter like Chisora who is way below his level on paper. I always thought a big physical guy who could rough him up in close was the right recipe to beat him, at least at heavyweight.