Some soft touches top tier boxers have taken

But the difference is they were taking those soft touches in their primes and they did so many times more than Usyk has, not at 39 y/o at the end of their careers after having fought the best B2B pretty much exclusively, in their backyards or on the road as the B-side.

And look at all the past prime or old men so many other greats and world champions defended their belts against or fought. Usyk has been pretty much exclusively fighting prime guys, the oldest at the world level being 36 y/o, and he is about to turn 39 and has been past his prime for years. His conduct in and out of the ring has been exemplary and beyond reproach but people wanna burn him at the stake for doing something once many of his fellow greats they worship at the altar did many times during their primes

 

Dubois 19-1 (18 KOs), was the WBA regular champ and a murderous puncher who had knocked out the vast majority of his opponents in a couple of rounds often in devastating fashion

His sole loss was on a very serious career-threatening eye injury in a very competitive fight vs an unbeaten Big Joe Joyce he was winning on 2 of the judge's cards and he was coming off 4 early KO wins. Yes, we saw some home cooking vs Lerena but at least 2 of those KDs were due to the to knee injury he sustained during the first KD and Lerena is a good fighter and tough and controversy aside Dubois' devastating power was on full display again with the KDs he registered despite him only having one good knee

I'm not sure what other people's definition of a gimme is but a well schooled 19-1 (18 KOS) murderous puncher with devastating power in both hands and good skills and speed for his size who is much bigger than you is far from it one in my eyes

When your power can transform a 260lb a teak-tough Big Joe Joyce into a safety-first jab merchant boxer all night who usually walks through the bombs and shots of everything face first with little regard for them then you know that power is very real

A ''gimme''

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I guess Fabio was a gimme for J-Park too considering he was getting schooled for pretty much the entire fight by Huni who a Lerena who lost his mother a day or two before the fight IIRC hurt very badly numerous times and was a whisker away from knocking out and likely would of if he was at his best.

And Fabio arguably lost to Frazer Clarke too

J-Park was much more skilled than Fabio and so is Dunois but, as with Dubois, savage power always poses a huge risk, especially when you're much smaller man than said savage puncher

 

Again, none of them were fighting pretty much the best B2B with no soft touches at Usyk's age. His only soft touch in his career since moving up to the world level in his 10th fight has been very late notice sub Witherspoon which was his official HW debut and his 2nd weakest opponent in all that time is Chisora. Yes they were more active but they weren't 38-39 either

Usyk cleaned out the CW division and then he cleaned out all the champs and highest ranked opponent's at HW, who were either ranked #1 or #2 when he fought them, or at worst possibly one might have been #3, sans obviously Dubois I who was his mandatory and had been so for like 14 months.

People want Usyk to clean out the HW division of the next generation at 39-42 or 43 y/o are living in a dreamland and expecting him to do something no other champ in history has done. He's about to become the 4th oldest HW champion of all time next month and is already the oldest undisputed HW champ ever and the 2nd oldest unified HW champ and the 3 ranked above him all natural HW 240-250lb + giants with extremely high KO%

Foreman KO 89%
Vitali KO 91%
Wlad KO 82%

And Foreman retired for a decade and was essentially a one-hit wonder champ in his 2nd incarnation who won the HW title on a come from behind KO and then lost in his 1st defence vs a Euro level Schulz in everyone bar the corrupt judge's eyes

Wlad was 2-3 months older than Usyk is now the last time he won a fight

And even though Vitali was a couple of years older than Usyk is now he retired for 4 years and he was fighting soft touches between the ages of 38-41 like a shot Briggs who had been winning but against who? Tomato cans.

And Euro level Sosnowski. Solis. And Diamond Boy. And Solis, too

Usyk has been fighting the best and highest rated fighters in the division throughout his reign sans his first fight against mandatory Dubois who was still extremely powerful and dangerous and much bigger than him. There have been zero soft touches in either of Usyk's reigns as CW and HW champs

Truth be told I don't even know if it's a case of The Dosser being shot or it's just a combination of him facing actual world class opponents who actually have skills and Malik Scott's genius idea of trying to transform him into a 'skilled' boxer. Belly, J-Park and Big Bang are the best fighters he ever fought and Big Bang had 100lbs on him and is the biggest puncher in the division. Big Bang would've done that to any version of him IMO. Sure he should've put Hendrix way earlier but, as said, the later fought purely to survive and The Dosser is still trying to be a boxer.

J-Park was genuinely fearful of The Dosser's power as he was of Big Bang's and with good reason too

 

But Vitali is literally only 1 of 3, or will be come the end of next month, HW champions older than Usyk and, as said, the 2nd incarnation of Foreman was a one-hit wonder whose huge power and size bailed him out against a former LHW in his title winning effort and who clearly lost it in his first defence vs Schulz. And, as said, 2nd career Foreman was much bigger than everyone he fought, very often having 20-30lbs on his opponents, and pretty often 40-50lbs or even more sometimes. The minimum amount of weight he had over any of his opponents during his 2nd career was 16lbs and both Wlad and Vitali were 240-250lb giants with very high KO% too. Usyk is doing something unprecedented as he's the not only the oldest undisputed HW champion ever, the 2nd oldest unified HW champion, and very soon to be the 4th oldest HW champion ever but he will be the only small HW to even hold a belt at 39 y/o, let alone be unified HW champ

He did fight purely to survive though and he was slipping a lot of shots and actually displayed good head movement and survival skills and you could see Scott's influence in The Dosser's style.