ATG HW: No.1 Ali ; No.2 Louis ; No.3 Usyk ; Can it be like this?

Lol. Ibeabucchi does not have a better heavyweight resume.

 

Knocking out an undefeated Chris Byrd and outpointing an unbeaten David Tua are better wins than Dubois, Chisora, and a shot-to-pieces Joshua, once we peel back the layers and look at the quality of the wins, this is an argument that could be made.

Usyk has a much greater legacy and is obviously the better P4P fighter, but his HW resume is getting crazily overrated, especially off the back of a KO win of a guy he already KO'd years ago, who is a Euro-level fighter. Dubois and Fury's resumes are going to age awfully over the next decade, and then I think once the dust settles there'll be a more balanced perspective on where Usyk sits in the ATG HW list.

 

Joshua was not shot to pieces when Usyk bet him. You are thinking of the Dubois fight.

Byrd and Tua are about equivalent to Fury and Joshua, and the two together certainly don't equal Usyk's wins over FuryX2, JoshuaX1, DuboisX2, and Chisora.

 

Mentally, he was a shell of himself; he never got over that Ruiz night. Usyk was in second gear against him and could've stopped him if he put his foot down, like he did against Dubois in the rematch. But yes, by the Dubois fight, he was much further on the slide. I think an undefeated Byrd and Tua are much better scalps than Joshua post-Ruiz, and Fury, especially a post-Ngannou Fury when he set the sport back about 20 years with his dire performance.

H2H, I think Tua beats Joshua and Dubois, and loses to Fury. I think Byrd gives Fury nightmares as well. This is the same fella who got caught juicing, lost at domestic British level to John McDermott and then got dropped by a bloke who had never boxed professionally before. Usyk is a complete legend, and he is one of the greats at both heavyweight and cruiserweight, but the manner in which he's being overrated on ATG level at the moment is wild.

 

He was not really mentally totally shattered until Usyk. He rebounded well, faced his fears, got back in with Ruiz, and had a good win against Pulev.

Fury was just a fat pig against Ngannou. Not much to be said about that. He looked better against Usyk. The sport has not been set back 20 years. It is thriving. Say what you will about Fury, and at the end or the day, he dethroned a 17 defense champ and a 10 defense champ. Both have context, but both are still good wins, even in context.

 

He was visibly softer than even usual though. There is good weight and bad, and Fury visibly looked to me like he trained at London's fish and chips.

Nor am I trying to cope with anything. I am of the opinion that Fury lost that fight and I hate it that they robbed Ngannou.

But hey, I'm not trying to convince anyone. It was a disgrace regardless. Point taken and fair play.

 

Yeah, on the face of it, it might seem a wild take, but Tua beats AJ and Dubois in my opinion, and he only loses to Fury because of the insane height difference. Beating the same fighters over and over again does nothing for me, especially when one is Dubois, who has zero ring IQ and would not be an elite world championship level fighter if he were around in the 70s or 90s.

Same goes for AJ, completely mentally gone after Ruiz and would only be a fringe top 10 fighter in the 90s. Usyk could only beat who was put in front of him, and he's a magical talent who would give any HW in history a great fight, but there's no way I'm putting him anywhere near the top 3 at HW with such a thin resume. Dubois and Fury's resumes will age like milk. Chisora is not a world-level fighter; he's a Euro gatekeeper, and that's what Dubois is too.

The only real solid HW win, an actual A-grade win, is the Fury one, in my book, and even then, this is a post-Ngannou Fury. I will say this though, Usyk's run at cruiserweight was sensational, I don't want to discredit him, I just think people are getting far too carried away with a repeat victory against a limited fighter he had already knocked out and perspective is needed.

 

Not with Holmes, etc around. Not enough fights at HW is what it comes down to really. That's just how it is when you're competing with those career long heavies.

 

But Usyk has now done twice in 8 heavyweight fights what Holmes did not do in 20 defenses...unify!. Usyk is a two-time undisputed, whereas Holmes never even unified.

Holmes never unified, and never faced a #1 contender.

Holmes in not the man to cite, here. Maybe Lennox or Marciano. But not Holmes.

 

The two time undisputed though is a little bit of smoke and mirrors.

Usyk vacated the belt and then Dubois was awarded a vacated belt and then Usyk become undisputed again from beating the same opponent who he vacated his belt to.

So in all honestly I don't put much stock in that TBH.

Usyk unifying you have a point with though but I still like Holmes's longevity and better numbers overall though.

I know you're not the biggest Holmes fan which is fine but Holmes still does have double the wins over top 10 ranked opponents and double the world title wins.

So I think in this case Holmes's quantity still should rank him above Usyk at Heavyweight.

 

But Holmes never did it at all, and never defended against a #1.

Just different kinds of fighters. Larry had 20 defenses, and that is to be respected, but people who are citing Usyk's few fights just don't understand that he had only needed a few to do what some guys never did.