Does Usyk's last performance affects his ranking on an ATG heavyweights list?

If you consider the opinions of a handful of fans more reliable than what actually happens in the ring, then I’m speechless. Usyk easily beat Dubois in 2022, and two years later he beat an improved Dubois even more easily—yet you’re talking about some sort of decline. A decline so drastic that he supposedly can’t beat a retired kickboxer?
That makes absolutely no sense.

 

Don't say things like, "I'm speechless," It is empty hyperbole, and it makes you look stupid. Make a good argument.

Which you haven't done here. Again, and again and again, and again...his true fans have been talking about his decline almost since he joined the heavyweight division. He beat Dubois both times easily because of his superior ring intelligence..but it was almost year before the Rico fight, and at 39, a year is a long time.

You think the Dubois fight is some kind of metric because you don't really know what you are watching, but it is absurd to think that at 39 he is at his peak. Really, just say the sentence to yourself a couple of times, and I think even you will come to understand.

 

Considering that the much younger Dubois showed clear improvement since his first fight with Usyk—yet lost the rematch even more decisively—there is absolutely no evidence of Usyk being in decline, and yet here you are talking about a genuine collapse.
A fight against a retired boxer isn't a decline—it's a disaster.
Who are these "true" Usyk fans who call white black and black white? You and who else?

Usyk beat Daniel thanks to his ring IQ; did he lose that before the Rico fight? Or did senile dementia and Alzheimer's join the mix alongside potential CTE and Parkinson's? Is 38 some magic age limit that Usyk's "true fans" have discovered? It's a good thing Foreman didn't know about that when he made his comeback at 37...

 

You keep saying something that just isn't true. There has been decline for years. And Dubois really didn't show that much improvement...that was all to hype the second ight.

Yes, you start to decline in your thirties, and by your later thirties, you are not the same as you were. That is just biological reality.

Rico used a different strategy, so irrelevant.

 

But in which fight did you notice this drop in form? From which specific fight has Usyk been weakening so much?

 

Almost as soon as he went to heavy.

 

What don't you understand about my question?
Starting from which fight has Usyk been getting progressively worse, leading up to the disaster against Rico?

Which fight?

 

I told you, he left his best at cruiser. I will let you look on boxrec yourself if you don't know what his first heavyweight fight was.

 

Fair enough, I get that if he’d moved up to heavyweight while still a cruiserweight, he would have dominated the division more easily—okay.

So, according to Usyk’s true fans, he was at his best in the heavyweight division against Chazz Witherspoon; it was worse against Chisora, even worse against AJ, and so on, all the way down to the disaster against Rico. Is that what you’re trying to say?

 

Not exactly. Nor am I "trying" to say anything. I am saying that his physical tools have been in decline for a long time, as is obvious, even axiomatic, since he is 39.

 

Three Kings? What's that about?

 

Wow 17 pages debating yet all agreeing Uysk fought like crap

 

Usyks performance has been misrepresented from the start. During the fight very little mention was made about the fact that there was open scoring during the fight and I believe that affected the way Usyk fought. No impact on his legacy imo, Rico fought a great fight.

 

If his capabilities have long been in such a sorry state, how on earth did he move up to heavyweight and dominate the division?

 

Fury/AJ/Wilder is genrally called the three kings era