Derek Chisora gave Usyk a better fight than Hunter and Marco Huck (who got a hometown gift 14 months prior against Lebedev) gave 32 year old Povetkin as much trouble as Hunter gave 40 year old Povetkin. His best wins are Bakole and Kuzmin. All of the evidence suggests that he was a 2nd rate cruiser in his prime and he's on the decline now.
Forrest with no backing and basically learning on the job is carving out a nice space for himself above the other fringe type contenders right now. Is a world title in his future? No. But can he continue to get paychecks on televised cards as a gatekeeper to the top ten and spring some upsets? Yea. All respect to the guy.
He's obviously improved a lot and was very unlucky last night. Something was definitely majorly off with Hunter though and he looked a pale shadow of himself.
Jerry Forrest is positioned for a good payday now. Unlike Hunter, he's someone who wouldn't be afraid to fight Hrgovic in an IBF eliminator.
I'm thinking Kownacki as well, but I think Kowanacki's people should probably give him a absolute no hoper or two to help get him back on the right track.
I already gave Forrest props of a sort in another thread, but that performance was definitely aided by Hunter's atrocious conditioning and gameplan. Still, you can only fight who they put in front of you, and good on Forrest for capitalising on a Hunter ripe for the picking. Shame he couldn't quite cross the finish line for the win. That's thrice now he's failed to do so, though the Zhang fight was a dubious decision and I hear the Franklin fight was a straight out robbery. Only Takam has managed to beat him uncontroversially of late, which speaks more for that older journeyman's quality over the years, another fighter that was way better than his record indicated.
Pretty silly to write off any fighter after one poor performance. If Hunter performs badly in his next fight we can start to draw some more concrete conclusions as to his future chances. And I'm not sure anyone claimed he was the best heavyweight, even his "cult following". Just a much better than advertised one, which was borne out by strong performances against the likes of the undefeated Bakole, the undefeated Kuzmin, and a still game Povetkin.
You're clearly some kind of moron with major biases, so no need to take this little discussion further.
i agree. forrest deserves a ton of praise. i hope he gets a good payday or two. the only thing is that it is hard to get to excited about him. he is a good solid grinder without next level talent. but im rooting for him.