I know it's early days and his only had 10 fights but to beat a credible and durable opponent like Glowacki in that manner in front his home town is a very impressive feat. The only thing needed to cap the performance off would have been a stoppage but thats a lot to ask against a durable champion. Can he do it? the eye test says yes but his power doesn't seem to be as big as his ko percentage would suggest. He still slaps abit with his hooks I noticed nevertheless his jab, constant lateral movement, counter punching is incredible. In my opinion he beats Bellew quite easily, Lebedev will be tricky because he seems to have stepped up his boxing ability, but if he tries to box with someone like Usyk he will find its pointless. The cruiser weight division is the most dangerous and competitive division in boxing with guys like Lebedev, Usyk, Bredis, Drozyd, Dorticos, Kalenga, Durodola, Huck, Gassiev, Mchunu, Makabu and Kucher. What do you guys think?
He can but I don't think Usyk or his people should get carried away and rush in to a unification fight. I hope he has a few defences and then chases unifications, but yes I think he looks the man to beat in the division.
I think it can happen in this division because there's less money so less politics. The big fights and competitive fights have been happening in the CW division these last two years whilst I've paid more attention to it
Wasn't the Lebedev v Ramirez fight the first unification since the David Haye days? The point of their being less money available for big fights means there is probably less chance of them happening.
See I beg to differ because as there's less money, the belt organizations will force mandatories like Lebedev v Gassiev and the boxers will want unifications because its there best chance of becoming popular and getting bigger paychecks but thats my opinion.
If you look over the last few years there hasn't been many fights between the top fighters at Cruiserweight, the reason is they are getting chump change to duke it out with the class of the division.
To the contrary there's been a lot of good fights. We had: Lebedev v kalenga, Dorticos v kalanega, Makabu v Bellew, Makabu v Mchunu, Lebedev v Ramirez, Makabu v Kucher, Huck v Glowacki, Glowacki v Usyk, Bredis v Duradola, Duradola v Chakhiev, Ofalabi v Huck, Ofalbi v Kudyrashov, Gassiev vs Lebedev coming up soon. That's just the ones in the last two years between the top 10 guys that I can remember
None of those was top 5 guys though. Lebedev, Drozd, Hernandez, Wlodarczyk, Huck never even thought about fighting each other when they was champions
Is Johann Hernandez still fighting? I see he hasn't fought since 2014. He'd be a tougher match for Usyk I think than most of the cruisers who have recently busted to world level. He wouldn't be walking straight forward like Glowacki.
I think he beats them all, but you're right Lebedev would be the tougher challenge... I want USYK vs Bellew!