36yr old Ali lost to a 7 fight novice (Spinks), 39yr old Usyk beat kickboxing legend with 77 fights

No one is hating on Usyk. People are merely pointing out that holding the division hostage is wrong.

Ali defended his title 11 times in under 4 years. He was 36 but a lot older due to numerous wars he had vs Frazier and Norton.

A guy fighting 3 times a year will age faster than a guy fighting once a year and preserving himself a lot better.

 

Spinks, the Olympic gold medalist from one of the greatest teams assembled. Loma won a world title in 3 fights too.

 

Yeah he got dropped though by a huge outsider. Point being, that every great heavyweight has strugged to look perfect in ever

 

People don’t age the same exact way, athletes don’t age the same exact way, fighters most of all definitely do not age the same way. Just because Ali was 36 it isn’t the same degradation. He was far more worn out than that number appears on the surface.

 

He was tripped. Lol.

 

Rico was an ATG heavyweight kickboxer who has boxed for 15 years and had regular sparring with top heavyweights. What's your point?

So what, he was old as hell by the time a prime Marciano fought him and managed to drop him. Point being, every great heavyweight has struggled against opposition they were expected to beat handily. Marciano was the HEAVY favourite going into that fight.

Exactly, former lightheavyweight dominated him. Holyfield 3-1 favourite going into the fight. What did Moorer go on to do?

At the time they fought, it was considered a huge upset loss for Foreman.

Who said anything about being a "scrub"? You've missed the point entirely. Foreman was heavily favoured going into that fight, with betting odds at 6/1.

You don't have to be a genius to see the theme here. Heavily favoured going in, but struggled and/or lost.

 

Yeah he tripped on Wepners right. Without the punch he doesn't go down.

 

Wepner standing on Ali's foot, proof footage

You guys are desperately grasping at straws. Wepner did not knock down Ali. Just like Breidis did not knock down Usyk or Dubois did not knock down Usyk.

Wepner did not beat Ali, was not leading on the scorecards, and did not knock him down.

 

You are re writing history

 

Kickboxers and MMA punchers will likely have more success in boxing than boxers will in those sports because they have the boxing skillset plus elite abilities in other fields (kicking, wrestling, jiu-jitsu etc.)

They can box but the boxer cannot kick or grapple at all, so it's not an a good comparison.

Then these crossover fighters have advantages like no footage to study and ease of underestimation. Fury and Usyk both came in at career heavy weights, neither were mentally dialled in, and they had to adapt in real time against opponents who had been studying them specifically, and designing a game plan to beat them. While dealing with the pressure of potentially making a critical mistake and losing to a "kickboxer/wrestler".

Then you factor in that these are elite combat sports strikers, arguably the best ever in their disciplines, who have been boxing for 15 years or more, and sparring with high level pros. Objectively these are unconventional but experienced high level boxers.

Every champion who made more than a few defences fought someone significantly less dangerous than a pro boxing debut Ngannou/Verhoeven. Someone like Pianeta, a sparring partner of Wlad's to boot, is a much easier opponent.

 

I hate having to keep saying this, but very few kickboxing fans even consider Rico to be the heavyweight kickboxing GOAT. Most consider him as a historically borderline or lower tier top 10 fighter in his own division. He's struggled and even lost to some nearly shot fighters whose primes went all the way back to the 1990s and 2000s. NOBODY considers him to be the overall kickboxing GOAT. He doesn't even come up in those discussions. He was a good kickboxer, but he wasn't anywhere near that great.

This is a really bad look for Usyk. There's no way around that. I still think he's either the greatest or the second greatest cruiserweight in history, depending on how you rate him against Evander Holyfield. And he's become a two division unified champion which is extremely difficult to do, so I give him credit for that. But this heavyweight era is extremely weak. It's probably slightly better than the Klitschko era but even that's debatable. The heavyweight division has never recovered from the dearth of talent caused by the collective retirement of the 1990s crop.

Hearing people call Usyk the heavyweight GOAT before this made me sick to my stomach, and I'm a fan of the guy. He is one of the greatest fighters ever but not one of the greatest heavyweight champions. Unfortunately, I think after yesterday, he might not even be remembered for the former in the eyes of boxing public. This is a not inconsequential stain to his legacy which didn't need to happen.

 

So Rico has had a 15 year boxing career is that what you're trying to imply really ? because he's done some sparring here and there ?

What's my point ? you're comparing great boxers to a kickboxer who had 1 professional boxing fight 12 years ago.

How in the world is Archie Moore, Michael Moorer, Billy Conn, comparable to fighting a kickboxer with 1 professional fight ?

You're saying people are being rose tinted but this opinion is an utterly ridiculous take.

Moore had beaten notable top contenders like Nino Valdes, Bob Baker, and had something like 65-3 record at Heavyweight.

Moore was also on a 21 win streak prior to the Marciano fight beating numerous top ranked fighters.

Moore is not the definition of struggling against a lesser fighter he's a top 10 P4P fighter of all time ?

Moorer didn't dominate Holyfield ? he won a majority decision in a very close fight.

And 1 judge made a huge scoring error by scoring the 2nd round 10-10 a round in which Holyfield knocked Moorer down in.

If the judge rightly scores that round 10-9 for Holyfield. Then Holyfield retains the title on a draw hardly domination like you're falsely claiming.

Moorer was a world class Heavyweight who was 35-0 ?

No i didn't miss the "point" your examples and comparisons are ludicrous.

Struggling against great boxers and world class top 5 rated boxers is not the samething.

I give Rico credit for looking better than what i expected him to. But you are seriously reaching trying to make some these comparisons.

If Rico actually proves himself against other notable Heavyweight boxers then fair enough Usyk's win over him may age well.

But until that we really don't know what Rico's level is at boxing.

Usyk was not in the best of shape, he may of aged overnight, there's alot of unanswered questions.

Ngannou arguably beat Fury and then his bubble got burst against Joshua who flattened him.

 

This is pretty much irrelevant at the highest level of boxing due to hyper specialization, experience, and apparently Usyk is the best heavyweight of this generation if not the history of the sport according to certain fans which makes it worse if true. Margins of Error should be too miniscule at the highest level and Dave Allen who spared both Usyk and Verhoeven thought Verhoeven had no chance, so its likely Allen handled business in sparring. All of that sparring does not typically translate to world level and Verhoevens last pro boxing match was in 2014.

Such an elite boxer should have way more experience in that ring to outsmart and control the tempo and Usyk has beaten significantly better pure boxers than Verhoeven in addition to better boxers who can punch harder, and his defensive economy alone should have made Verhoeven look out of depth. Boxers not only typically dedicate far more time on exclusively boxing (obviously) due to other sports utilizing far more styles and maneuvers than just boxing, but they also diversify their punch paths in comparison, have more multifaceted defensive maneuvers, foot work steps, and use angles practically no other combat sport utilizes not even kick boxing due to their fear of getting kicked. It's quite literally an example of a checkers grandmaster competing with a chess grandmaster in CHESS. Or a Chess grandmaster competing with a shogi player in a game of shogi of the highest level and almost winning. It would be embarrassing for the guys in their home territory.

Daniel Dubois is better than Verhoeven, in almost every way apart from cutting the ring. Either Usyk wasn't taking him seriously, he got old, he just struggles with pressure fighters that won't respect him, or a combination of factors, but Usyk was the one who avoided his mandatorys for this clown show

 

A boxer of 15+ years sparring the top guys in the sport, who is also an elite striking athlete, is a serious boxer. I highly, highly doubt that Allen handled any business vs Rico in sparring. He apparently spars worse than he fignts, which is hard to imagine.

A more accurate analogy would be they are both top chess players but one plays signficantly more chess and the other is the best in the world at go. However, the chess grandmaster is now well past his best due to age/wear, and he isn't taking his opponent seriously, and he has never seen his unorthodox opponent play before, while his opponent has been studying him intensely and training for the fight of his life for at least several months.