I agree his injury prone career hurts him real bad. I actually wonder if his pro kickboxing career beforehand was partly a factor. Couldn't have helped his body.
It's not better than Wladimir's overall resume though. I'd say Byrd is rated higher than Dubois at Heavyweight for now although Dubois could easily overtake Byrd in the next year or so. Joshua achieved more than Haye at Heavyweight but if you combine Haye's Cruiserweight resume he's on the same level as Joshua. Wladimir doesn't have a win on the same level as Fury granted. But surely Wladimir's overall longevity and quantity is enough to tip it in his favour ? Being a champion for a decade without a loss is a very rare achievement that I think you're not taking into account.
I believe that it is. Aggressive pursuit of quality trumps useless quantity. Again, a decade without a loss against against who, though? If Usyk managed to beat better guys in that short period of time, what does htat say about that time? Also, Haye's cruiserweight resume isn't a thing. No one gives Uysk the benefit of counting his cruiserweight fights, so Haye doesn't get that benefit. Byrd may be better than Dubois, but not Fury. Usyk has TWO wins against Fury.
Wlad has both quality and quantity, that's the point. Usyk top wins are better, but the sheer volume of Wlad's quality wins trumps them. Comparing Holmes' reign to Wlad's - Holmes has more title defences and more Top 10 guys beaten, but he also missed more top contenders. To me, they are about equal and both way above Usyk when it comes to resume. Wlad beat every top contender willing to face him. This made him great. Yeah, both wins counts, but we can't skip over the fact, they were wins over the same guys.
That's his loss then. Even before losing these years, he wasn't keen to fighting top competition often. And after that too.
We have two different perspectives on this. I value quantity aswell but not when there's such a huge gap in quantity and longevity. Wladimir beat 15 ranked Heavyweights, beat 12 undefeated fighters, and was a champion for a decade. And I don't believe beating only 3 Heavyweights despite them being very good Heavyweights. Is enough to overtake the sheer bulk of Wladimir's resume. I also don't believe Usyk's best wins over Joshua, Fury, Dubois, is alot better than the likes Byrd, Povetkin, Haye, Sultan, Chagaev. It's better don't get me wrong but I don't think it's the huge gap like you are proclaiming. I don't see that Dubois has proved he's a better Heavyweight than Byrd as it stands today. Haye with his Cruiserweight and Heavyweight achievements is on a similar level to Joshua. Fury is a win that Wladimir hasn't got on his resume to compare with. But as I said surely beating 12 undefeated fighters, 15 ranked Heavyweights, is enough to overcome that single name ? I don't think beating 3 Heavyweights is nearly enough to overtake a decade of Wladimir being a champion.
It's Usyk man.. he never groped like Wlad he won his fights clean.. Wlad despite having better physical gifts than much of his opposition still resorted to excessive clinching & lackadaisical performances.. Vitali wasn't a dirty fighter but his resume is thin.. Sanders & Peter are probably his two best wins...
Again, and again, and again...."same guy" isn't a thing. It was invented to degrade Usyk. No one said "same guy" when fighters throughtout history were rematching, and it is to Usyk's tremendous CREDIT that he gave the rematches against the best and won them. Good boy. Go champ! Wlad's quality is thin. Just like Holmes, he could have shored it up by swapping out some of the weaker guys for better alternatives. Leapai he was stuck with because he was a mando, but others were just garbage filler defenses, sometimes taken because Vitali was taking the better guy available.
Good assesment. Usyk really needs to be rated on his full fight career and not just HW to appreciate him correctly. He only came to HW as a 32 year old.
We do have different perspectives. 1)- Aggressively pursuing the quality is much better than reining endlessly with lots of filler defenses. 2)- "3 guys" isn't a thing. This is a narrative that has been invented specifically to minimize Usyk, pretending that the great reamatches of the sport's history didn't happen. 3) Haye's cruiserweight fight don't count. It they do, then so do Usyk, and now we are talking a whole different level. Usyk's years aggressively beating the best heavies AND cruisers makes him one of the uber-elites of the sport's history.
It's not invented to degrade Usyk. 2 wins over the same guy it's still one guy beaten. All in all, good for the resume, but if we're doing detailed comparisons, stuff like that counts. Wlad beat every top conteder, he couldn't swap anything. In the year he fought Pianeta, he fought Povetkin. In the year he fought Leapai, he fought Pulev. Before 2012 (his weakest year) he beat Haye. If you're about quality - he beat everyone he needed to beat. Filler defences don't define his resume. Even if he wouldn't have Rahman, Mormeck, Pianeta to give him these extra 3 defences, his resume and quantity/quality level is still amazing.