How does peak Artur do against the versions of Fury, Dubois, AJ and Chisora that Usyk fought? Would he be too small, or does he have giant killing power?
Nah. Usyk does well because he is concerned with the incoming a lot more than Beterbiev is. Going toe to toe with much bigger men has never been a recipe for success.
Beterbiev does not have the head movement, the southpaw left hand, and the in and out footwork of Usyk. Usyk's left confuses people since they can't read it. Beterbiev has an amazing right but it is readable. Beterbiev is excellent and i am sure he could beat some top 20 heavies but he isn't beating Fury or Joshua or Dubois. He might beat Chisora or a Whyte. He has power but at heavyweight, it would be slightly above average power. Could he ko a Joshua? He could throw accumulation but he would have to get very close to land a lot of shots and that would mean eating a lot of big shots himself. I don't think he could take a lot of clean shots from Joshua. We needed to see Beterbiev at cruiserweight before judging whether he could fight at heavyweight.
Beterbiev is too small and doesn't have the same skillset as Uysk. Uysk has success at heavyweight because of his movement, angels, feights and most importantly, his adaptability.
Moving up in weight isn't just about ability, it's about style. Beterviev's style is all wrong for being the smaller man.
People in her underrating Beterbiev’s boxing ability massively, when he wants to, he can box and doesn’t have a terrible defence, he can also make adjustments based on what the opponents is doing, like when Joe Smith kept stepping in with double jabs, Beterbiev gave ground, made him commit, stepped back from the first jab, then slipped and sprung back in suddenly to counter the 2nd jab and that required defence and counter punching ability.
He doesn;t have the frame to add the weight that Usyk did,plus he doesn't have the fleetness of foot or the reach. Beterbiev has stated that a match between him and Usyk now would be all wrong for him as Usyk is now,"too big and too strong". This answers the question. Usyk is too STRONG- Beterbiev BRUTALLY HONEST on a possible Usyk fight!
