Even still, AJ would lose the fighting before he stepped in the ring. If AJ is intimidated by Usyk... Big George's scowl alone will instill plenty of fear and doubt in AJ.
Joshua is in serious trouble now. He has committed the one crime that the modernista's can never forgive, namely a big heavyweight losing to a smaller heavyweight, and thus contradicting their core argument. They will have no choice but to throw him under a bus, as they did with Wilard and Carnera.
How can a guy that destroyed Joe Frazier and Ken Norton and years later, go 12 with prime Holyfield, and then regain the lineal title in his 40 s, be over rated?? Just cos they boxed before you were born, doesn't make em bad, crap, overrated etc.
Here is a thought experiment. What is Joshua had got past Ruiz, or simply fought someone else, and Usky had been the first man to beat him? Wouldn't that have put the cat among the pigeons!
Foreman has the highest knockout ratio in heavyweight history and is a 2 time Heavyweight Champion without being effective. That's amazing.
This doesn't seem to be the right forum for this. Ali, who was about Usyk's size but actually ca 10 lbs lighter in his prime, is the most highly regarded h2h fighter on this board. And Holmes is very highly regarded as well. As is the even smaller Holyfield. So it is overall very uncontroversial here that a supremely skilled fighter Usyk's size would do well against just about anyone. Where opinions are more split is how a much smaller and fairly slow pressure fighter like Rocky would do against some of the better HWs of the last decades.
Exactly, Usyk is 6-3, over 220 which makes him bigger than Foreman was when he fought Frazier in Jamaica. Usyk just seems smaller because he isn't stiff and lumbering. Usyk is a southpaw, strong, well conditioned, has all of the boxing skill and he does things in the gym that I've never seen a heavyweight do like walk on his hands, do 20 pull ups, along with his movement work. Usyk is one of a kind, nobody in boxing history is similar. In most eras he would dominate, in this one with huge skilled and powerful fighters, it's going to be tough because of the talented fighters who share the era. Joshua, Wilder, Fury, and many others are big, powerful, and dangerous. Usyk doesn't get to fight slow smaller people. If his competition was Folley, London, Mildenberger, Cooper, etc., it would be much easier for him and less dangerous.
For the life of me, I never understood why size queens never cherished the memories of Primo and big Jessy?
Because they lost to smaller men, thus undermining their core argument. Therefore they must be diminished, and the more the better.
220lbs, 6’3 southpaws were extremely rare historically. usyk is small now but would have been big in most divisions historically. Bigger than Liston, Foreman, Holmes, Louis, Johnson, Jeffries etc.
I am going to play devils advocate here. Usky is currently 35, and at that age Louis was 213lbs, Liston around 220, Holmes around 222lbs. I could also argue that Usky fought at light heavyweight as am amateur, at the age of 21, at which age Louis was ranked as a professional. He actually started out as a middleweight. I think he is a good idea of what some of the greats of the past might look like, if they were fighting today.
Not only that, but the listed heights seem to be exaggerated further with each generation. Seems like it is now routine to add two inches. If only height were recorded as accurately as weight is at enact weigh in. Practically every “tale of the tape” is A tall tale.