What would have happened if Usyk had moved up to HW in 2015?

He's have been the man at any time, but Fury was unavalilable after Klitschko, and Joshua would have never developed his legacy at all. So basically he would have cut out his cruiserweight greatness in order to beat Deontay Wilder and the unproven Joshua, Parker, Ruiz, Charles Martin...

He did the right thing legacy wise. Man knew what he was up to.

 

Would have probably saw Wlad V Usyk, and Usyk V Wilder.

 

There would have been very interesting fights like Wlad or Povetkin even younger Wilder is a interesting match.

If Usyk was confident of beating Wlad or other SHW's, I think he'd have gone up sooner, but he clearly wasn't. There's no reason to stay at cruiser if you believe you can be a HW champion and potentially get all the belts.

 

Not a good idea. He wouldn't have the financial backing to get a title shot. Look how long it took Whyte to get his...

Going the cruiserweight route aligned with the WBSS tournament, giving direct route to titles. He then leveraged the WBO rules into an (somewhat) immediate title shot against Joshua.

If he goes direct to HW, he loses the CW legacy, but potentially builds a deeper resume at heavyweight. Then again the big players may just freeze him out as long as possible.

Perhaps a similar question is, what happens if Usyk had delayed his move by a year to heavyweight, and let undisputed happen? Would he have a better legacy than now? As beating the undisputed champion (Joshua/Fury) would mean Usyk would have had 2 wins over a perceived ATG. And maybe even two wins against the loser as well.
Of course, maybe he earns a bit less money, and was concerned that if Fury won, he would have just dropped the WBO.

I think the route he took was the best he could. The landscape aligned for him to some extent at both CW and HW

 

I think it would have been a lot harder for him to get a title shot than it was in our timeline. He already had the cred of being undisputed crusierweight champ, that lets you jump the queue a bit, he would have had to take more risky fights against contenders, I still see him winning and becoming undisputed at hw, I just do not think there was a hw at the time that could realistically beat him, but I think it might be a bit less of a flashy success story than it was irl

 

The answer to this question is based on whether a champion would give him a shot earlier then 2021. Which they probably wouldn't. Usyk being CW is the main reason Usyk was A)a mandatory and B)why AJ agreed to fight him. If Usyk had HW feats now hes scary like Kabayel, Frank Sanchez, Hrgovic someone like that.

Being a dominant champ in the 2nd division is something that can be traded for a fast track to a HW title shot and without it Usyk might never get one.

Usyk would have about twice as long a total HW resume. Since he'd be at HW instead of CW champ hes going to have less fights then the 10 he had in this period during our timeline. He'd have about 15 or 16 total HW fights instead of 8.

 

He would have been frozen out, most likely. He would definitely gotten a mandatory shot at one of the belts, but after that it would have been a solitary reign for a long time, until the Saudi´s stepped in.

 

Funny thing is, which one?

WBC. No way they let him near Wilder. Maybe Whyte v Fury timeline.
WBO. Probably not, and the solitary mandatory opportunity likely goes to Briedis.
WBA. It's possible, but needs financial backing or even just the time to replace the old guard Ortiz>Povetkin. If not, even Dubois v Usyk timeline is difficult.
IBF. This is his most likely route. Gets the title shot instead of Pulev, post-Covid. So Pulev v Joshua time line.

The fastest possible route would be WBO on the Parker v Ruiz timeline, but that kind of is a gamble as you can't plan for Fury to go off the rails and fracture the belts.

 

If he cleared up, and carried on winning? Top 5 all time

 

He'd have to take endless stay busy fights because he'd be swerved. Big promoters would criticize his lack of competition and use it as an excuse to duck.

Eddie H: "Look I like the guy and think he's a decent fighter, but who has he fought? If we think a small man who won gold in a lower weight class is going to give Joshua trouble, I mean look at what he did to Povetkin. Usyk needs some big names on his resume to get himself in the conversation"
Something like that.

You need to understand that the ONLY reason Usyk got to face a cash cow is that he was able to use a unique rule to force Eddeh/Joshua's hand to defend the belt, AND they underestimated him massively. This rare combination of unique political power and apparent vulnerability allowed a prime, skilled fighter near Joshua during his post-Ruiz career.

He made the right decisions career wise. His Cruiserweight run is, historically, an additional HW resume as these guys are 215+ pounds and comparable in size to big HW's of the past.

 

The WBO and IBF are the only ones strict with their mandatories, and Usyk´s team seems to have been fully aware of this. Its hardly ever mentioned these days, but Usyk got his mandatory shot at Glowacki in his 10th fight. Usyk´s team got him one of the WBO trinket belts early and then they "defended" it to quickly climb the rankings(they bought the rankings and the mandatory spot).

 

Wilder wouldn't defend his title 10 times; Fury wouldn't come back if he retired.