He's obviously got decent power at least. I think he's a sharp, quick, technically short puncher and he's had a much better than average first 8 fights to judge his power on than most guys do at that point. But I don't consider him to have big one-punch raw power. I don't think it'll be long before someone takes him the distance or that he'll have a high ratio by the time he retires. I'm guessing it will level off to probably the 50's or 60's considering his more resilient starter opponents. He strikes me as having above average power, but not that much more than that. But I am not familiar with what he's shown as an amateur or anything that's come out about his sparring. I'm only assessing on his eight pro fights. Where would you place him trying to assess his stopping power up to this point? I know only time will tell for certain but just for guessing on what we've seen. Will he be considered a big, dangerous hitter in a few years' time? I think he'll be a world champion pretty soon, personally, but he'll be seen more as an athletic technician than a puncher.
Elite puncher in a way that Kovalev, Golovkin, Inoue and Klitschko are? Nop, don't think he's near that level. Decent enough though. EDIT: Never mind, I can see the question is whether he's a puncher or not, doesn't say elite lol, not sure why I inserted that. Ermmm... It's hard to say, I don't consider him a boxer puncher to be honest, more of a boxer but with enough power to stop some opponents.
I love the fact that he's an agile boxer, don't care if he's a puncher or not really. A 200 lb boxer moving like that, is just exhilarating to watch.
I think he hits harder than he lets on, he's trying to improve into an even better more well rounded fighter which is scary since he's already better than anyone at CW and isn't falling into the trap that so many before him have succumbed to. I think he could get guys out of there quicker than he is currently but he wants the rounds, with Muller he wanted to get him out of there quick thus proving he's better than Masternak, which I already knew anyway.
This. Just because he emphasises skill more than anything, that doesn't make him a featherfist. People say the same of Lomachenko, that he has underwhelming power, but look at the types of punches Lomachenko throws, they're not particularly knockout punches (sure, Loma is not elite in terms of power however).
He hits hard alright,but accumulation and being pretty accurate is more his forte than one hit demolitions.
I feel as though he has potent power there that he simply doesn't use. It's weird. Look forward to seeing him develop tho. Hope he doesn't get over hyped tho. That's always a recipe for haters
He has a lot of pop and will carry his power to heavyweight, I'd wager. He isn't a tremendous puncher like Kovalev and Golovkin who are p4p the hardest hitters in boxing.
He can definitely hit hard but he's not as aggressive or letting his hands go as freely as he did in many of his amateur and WSB fights. He's hurt, dropped and stopped fighters who are much bigger than him when he fought in the WSB and those WSB gloves are supposed to detract from your power too. His trainer James Ali Bashir says his training philosophy is to always go for the KO but that you have to box first until the opportunity to get the opponent out of there presents itself. [YT]CqxaukXSYJQ[/YT] Usyk hasn't been showing his full repertoire yet in his pro outings. He can do more than we're seeing and when we are getting to see it it's in flashes, IMO. Maybe we did in some of his earlier pro fights but my memory isn't the greatest. I can't remember which fight of his it was now but Vitali Klitschko paid a visit to his corner during the interval between rounds to have words with either him or Bashir, urging them to step on the gas and get his opponent out of there. Bashir was pretty insulted by that and it was pretty disrespectful and I can see why he took offence. That said, I can also see why Vitali and others were frustrated too knowing how talented Usyk is. Maybe Bashir needs to let him out of the cage more often. I wouldn't classify him as an elite puncher but he can hit hard when he wants to. Bashir says he can punch with both hands btw. There are lots of lengthy interviews with Bashir on Youtube and he speaks about Usyk in quite a few of them too. [YT]sCMFyY9iKMA[/YT]
