Witherspoon has never been relevant, is old and very slow, so apart from him being a lump I'm not sure what can be learned, if anything. Usyk got clocked a few times as well. Apart from Chazz being a heavyweight and Usyk getting his debut out of the way, it was a waste of time really.
Both are and were elite level fighters. ATG fighters is up for debate but the fact you can have a genuine discussion with those involved shows they are elite.
would you class top 10 pfp as elite ?? Defo would have usky p4p top 10 and elite. Not so sure ggg gets in it now
The likes of Loma,Mayweather,Pac,Crawford etc ..Boxers with skillz I see these solid Eastern Europeans like GGG,Usyk,Bivol etc as masters of basic boxing....Fit ,hard , well drilled etc without being outstanding ... I love what Usyk did mopping up all the belts but he was fighting boxers like he has fought all his life and scraped through the semi final and GGGs best win is a split decision v Danny Jacobs and apart from that theres not much to shout about... I just always believe a good boxer beats the good fighter
GGG has only fought Canelo and maybe Danny JAcobs who were top tier and got beat or nearly beat by both....Derevyanchenko gave him nightmares and the rest of his career has been pretty easy fighting Rosado,Macklin,Geale,Willie Monroe etc Usyk on the other hand completely cleared up his division albeit against similar styled Eastern Euro boxers....Bellew out boxed him for half that fight ffs .. For me GGG not elite Usyk maybe so
GGG is an all time great, no question about it. Usyk is arguably the greatest Cruiser of all time, he beat the best of his era and he pretty much beat them all fairly convincingly, I think that slides him into potential all time great status at the very least. We didn't really learn much from Saturday, I'd like to see him in with some tougher tests and I'd love to see him in with Whyte.
Bellew won 3 rounds against Usyk who - Gassiev fight aside - has always started slow and spent the early rounds taking a look. Have a look at Usyk's punch output in those first 3 rounds to the rest of the fight and then in other fights too. Meanwhile, Bellew had to operate at 100% to match Usyk's 70%, which is why Bellew was blowing out of his arse by the halfway point. Benavidez took a couple of rounds off of Crawford, it is what it is. Hunter is not a similar styled EE boxer. Neither is Mchunu. I wouldn't even put Glowacki in that mould either.
How is Usyk not elite? Unified the cruiserweight division in 15 fights. Olympic gold medalist. It's fair enough if your opinion is that he won't succeed at heavyweight, but to say he's not Elite is ridiculous. How you can't class GGG as elite either is mind boggling, especially during his peak years.
I've always considered the top 5 to generally be elite, not the entire top 10 though (era depending).
GGG was elite...now maybe slipping into world class but he got the nod of Deverychenko whos a real good fighter..hes was blowing good fighters away in 2014-2015 maybe he needed a bigger fight at that point but who was there? GGG Should have at least 1 win (2 in my book) over Alvarez the fact he doesn't officially means for me GGG won't be remembered as ATG...Not enough big name wins. Although that might be difficult in a division where either he or Canelo is the biggest name fighter. Usyk is Elite and probably will be an ATG... We will see when hes been in with the top heavy's or maybe even just a decent one like Chisora but he's already beaten some very good cruisers after 17 fights. His wins over them may get better with time.
Uh yeah there is a massive question about it. You don't become an ATG when your best win is a SD over Daniel Jacobs and I know what your response is going to be - Yeah but GGG beat Canelo twice !! No he didn't. Did GGG deserve to lose ?? Perhaps not but he sure as hell didn't deserve to win either, not once in those 24 rounds did GGG impose himself, take control or gamble, he deserved what he got. Corrupt judges ?? Perhaps but after the first fight GGG would have known that in order to win the rematch he'd have to go all out and win clearly, leave no doubts but instead he spent 12 rounds plodding around the ring throwing single shots. What a 36 year old Floyd Mayweather did against Canelo is what a true ATG does to a B+ fighter like Alvarez. GGG is an elite, borderline HOF'er but he's no ATG.
Everyone in boxing knows that Golovkin won the first fight against a Clen using Canelo, it's not even worth discussing, there were 7 rounds that he absolutely clearly won. Golovkin beat whoever would fight him, he wanted the Canelo fight way before it happened. Why was it down to Golovkin to go out and win the rematch clearly, why didn't Canelo have to do the same? It was a draw in my eyes, Golovkin came back very strongly and it wasn't a losing performance, there's no way Canelo would have been judged to have lost that fight had it been the other way around.
