Elephant in the room. When will Usyk start noticeably declining? He's 35 in 4 months.

You're quite right, but I'm not sure it happens anytime soon. Usyks foot and hand speed was phenomenal against someone who was landing very heavy bodyshots. Not to mention he performed at that level on the biggest stage of his career.

In regard to Joyce, I don't think Joyce causes any trouble at all for Usyk. Even on the decline, Usyk would beat Joyce... he's done it once before and since then Usyk has developed into a significantly better fighter in every department.

Fury is an interesting one. I always slated Fury to beat Usyk simply because he is so big, and has the ability to really lean on smaller fighters. However, let's not forget Fury has already been talking about retirement and lining up easy wins (Whyte). Mentally, Fury could retire after this Wilder fight. I re-watched Fury/Cunningham yesterday...man that makes the Usyk match up exciting!

 

Rematch joshua. Then on to fury. No rematch just straight up retire win lose or draw.

2 fights left. Had a long career factoring in the amatuers. Hes now fighting super heavyweights taking heavier shots. Also putting more stress on his body putting on extra weight etc. His style needs stamina...that declines with age.

He should go either one more with joshua then retire or one more on top of that with fury. The truth is the heavyweight division isnt his division to clean out really. He already cleaned out his own division. Now hes about to turn 35...hes proven his point already. Got to weigh up the risk/reward at this point.

 

Usyk's next 3 fights should be against Joshua, Fury and Wilder for big money.
Drop a belt or two along the way if needed.

 

He lives clean, has not taken a lot of punishment, and keeps in good shape. I give him three solid years before some decline is noticeable.

It has been a real pleasure watching Usyk engage his craft. He's a treasure.

 

He already has, he's a lot slower now. Lucky for him he still has his legs and good bounce, because his entire style relies on them. To be fair AJ is not as hungry as he was back when he fought wlad.

 

Usyk is 10 lbs heavier now and has to fight 12 round fights rather than 5 round fights, so he has to pace himself more. He's not going to be as athletic as he was at 26 but he's more physically imposing, stronger, tougher, a harder puncher, more skilled, more confident, more experienced (experience matters more at HW than in any other division) and he's been a consummate professional his whole career in an age of advanced sports science as a 200+ lbs man. If we look at the average age of the top 4 HW's (Fury, Usyk, Wilder, Joyce) we get 35.

This leads me to conclude that this is a near-prime Usyk, which is why AJ was dominated. 3 years earlier at 36, Povetkin would have likely KO'd AJ or won a fair decision and Wlad would have surely KO'd AJ 17 months earlier as an active, 22 fight undefeated champ. AJ won because he got his best opponents when they were considerably past their primes and hindered in various ways even beyond boxing politics, so the first time he didn't have those advantages he got badly exposed.

 

He said he wants to stun the world. We'll see.

 

I don't think it will matter. He already looked way slower in 2018 when he fought Gassiev as compared to when he fought Joyce in 2013. He looked even slower fighting Chisora in 2020 which led me to believe he might be too slow for AJ. It was actually nice seeing him turn back the clock against AJ. However with regards to slowing down, I think he can still last another 5 years as a top 1-2 or even top 5 heavyweight. The rest of the weight class is abysmal for skills and talent.

 

Hes not a lot slower, come on. His speed declined a little bit but it's not major YET

 

Can we all just be done with it and agree that no man who wins a fight with another man will ever deserve credit?

Sport's closed, we can all go home now.

[url]https://i.postimg.cc/MTMzpt72/583-F82-B8-D621-423-E-9-FA9-BA550-A66669-C.jpg[/url]

 

He's already on the decline but whether it's pretty noticeable depends on his opponents. He beats Joshua again, he beats Joyce, and beats Wilder too. Im not sure about Fury. I think if Whyte just goes for it and attacks Usyk, he'd give Usyk a rough time for 3 rounds before Usyk gets into his rhythm and easily beats him. Almost nobody except Fury beats Usyk. But there's another guy who i give a good chance.

Call me crazy but I actually think that, if Hunter and Usyk had a rematch, Hunter might win, because Usyks movement is only going to decrease and if Hunter were to pace himself, stick to his boxing instead of forcing the issue in spots early, he could potentially outslick him, outbox him, take 6 or 7 rounds off Usyk and get a majority decision. But i was wrong about Usyk vs Joshua so take it with a grain of salt.

 

Reflexes/Speed/Agility wise? He's already declined
Skill/experience/technicality? 1 more year