This is a past his prime Usyk...can you imagine if he was in his 20s/early 30s?

Yeah but I feel like he lacked the intelligence and defensive work he has now, I feel that maybe he got slower a tad but his defensive work has improved and he has been much better at making adjustments. It’s hard to call as his style at HW and CW are completely different, the only fight where he fought using his CW style was the Witherspoon fight

 

If you take off his age - you also have to knock off the experience with it. As the fighter with the IQ he has now, and the physicality he had younger has never existed.

 

The guy is a genius and a credit to the sport.

However, even a prime version of Usyk would still have had the exact same vulnerabilities to certain styles, just like ANY other fighter in history would.

He would not be able to have beaten any HW in history.

That’s completely unrealistic.

As great as he is/was, he barely beat Mairis Breidis at CW.

He’s not unbeatable.

No fighter in history is unbeatable.

 

He was the same weight against AJ three and a half years ago (but weighed in with less clothes), just faster.

Just as Ali was the same weight but just faster at his best in the 60's compared to for Frazier 1 and 2 and Norton 2.

 

Ali was 188 when he beat his first recognizable name in Miteff, 206 against Liston, 212 for his next great win against Frazier, and 216 for Foreman.

Usyk was 215 for his heavyweight debut, 221 against Joshua, and 226 last night, but I think the whole move to heavy in general has slowed him down but added some strength.

Very, very similar pattern of gain.

 

(Sigh). I explicitly wrote "at his best in the 60's" in order to not have any silly "188 lbs against Miteff"-stuff, but...

In a thread about Ali at his best nearly everyone named Williams through Folley, in which he was 212 lbs for all three. I can assure you that no one named Miteff, since that would just have been silliness of course.

Even if you throw In Liston 1 (210 lbs) and 2 (206 lbs) and Patterson 1 (210 lbs), we have an average of 210. And he had a better muscle tone in all of these fights than in any fight in the 70's. Hell, even at 214,4 for Chuvalo he was more ripped than at 212 for Frazier 2.

Come one. This 226 was with clothes and shoes on, which you of course know just as well as Miteff wasn't close to close to the best Ali of the 60's.

Without the shoes and all of those clothes he'd be very much around 221.5 lbs, which he weighed against Joshua. Indoor clothes and shoes added 4 lbs for me and I'm substantially smaller than Usyk at 6 foot and 170 lbs.

But of course he has purposely built up muscle since the move from CV. No one has said anything different. But against Joshua in 2021 he was the same size as last night, only quicker and with a better work rate.

 

I mean, this is based on my statement....you don't get to define the parameters of my statement. Their growth trajectory was very similar. Period.

 

Prime Usyk would have knocked out Fury and Joshua.

 

No, they weren't, if you're talking about Usyk's transition to HW in his 30's compared to Ali putting on weight from still a teenager against Miteff to pretty much fully matured in '67 and then gradually ageing in the 70's.

Usyk changed his training and diet to purposefully put on mass when he moved to HW. Ali never had such a transition. After his first two fights at HW he seems to have settled at a weight at just above 220 lbs and haven't made any adjustment since then. So when he faced AJ the first time he was the same size as now but with better speed and stamina. That Usyk is for me therefore the best HW version.

Ali was a still growing teen (albeit soon to be 20) when he faced Miteff. When he faced Liston at 22 he was already 210 lbs, 22 lbs heavier than when he faced Miteff. And I've never heard a hint about that he ever bulked up on purpose. Dundee detested weights. Over the next 2,5 half years it would vary between 214.5 lbs to 201 lbs, before he seemed to settle at about 212 lbs, which he was for his last three fights before being exiled.

He then pretty much targeted that same weight for his biggest fights in the early 70's. He was 212 when he avenged his losses to Frazier and Norton. He didn't in any way bulk up and sacrifice speed for those fights, instead he nearly killed himself to come in as light and fast as he could at that age.

For the third Frazier fight, he did actually lift weights and bulk up (after swapping Dundee for Sadler). That was at a stage where much of his speed had left him, though, and dancing for the full 15 against Frazier no longer was an option. Maybe you would see this as a better version of Ali than the one of his 60's championship reign, but he himself would disagree with you. He has stated that the younger faster version was better and would beat the older one.

 

gassiev?

 

I am not spending any more time arguing something that is manifestly true. Good day.

 

Using the weight against Miteff (which was Ali's lowest weight as a pro and about 20 lbs lighter than his average weight as a champion in the 60's) as any reference to prime Ali is about as "manifestly true" as Fury calling Usyk a MW.

Yes, Ali did once in his pro career weigh in as low as 188 lbs and Usyk was once a MW. And, yes, the 188 lbs Ali would lose badly to Frazier and Foreman and MW Usyk would lose badly to Fury, but that says what exactly?

 

But Fury has style based more on mauling, REACH, long jab and power than on speed and reflex as Usyk. Speed goes first. So even if Fury is more out of Prime... Stylistically has big advantage. Not only that. Usyk has 300 fight in amateurs. I do not agree that Fury has more mileage on the clock. Let's compare how Foreman did after 40 and how Ali did after 40 years old.

 

Excellent points.

Hypothetically, if Fury and Usyk shared the exact same sheer physical deteriorations, those deteriorations would detract more from Usyk’s overall game/style than they would from Fury’s.

Guys like Frazier and Tyson didn’t necessarily physically deteriorate more than other fighters, rather, their styles were far more physically expensive - therefore the duration for their time at the top was always going to be relatively limited.

 

Usyk looked very good. He has never stopped learning and honing his craft. His ring IQ is better than the CW days making it impossible to argue when his exact prime has or will occur.