He was a good fighter in his prime at cruiser. Hugely reliant on his power and utterly useless against most southpaws and guys with good feet, though. Never did much buy into the hype, personally, and I do think some folks make him out to be more than he is to bolster up Usyk’s resume.
We get it, you hate Terence Crawford and love Oleksandr Usyk. But Gassiev is simply not as talented or skilful as Madrimov.
Gassiev have been a belt holder, but Usyk was always the man and the champion and much better than Gassiev.
Lol, I remember watching 46 year old Holyfield outbox Valuev. Haye basically copied his gameplan, or indirectly came up with the same one. This content is protected This content is protected
Weird none of these guys would move up in weight to make more money since all of them would be top 10 heavyweights…..
This. He was too small for HW. His thudding power didnt translate against larger men. Guys who move up in weight are usually more dynamic type of fighters.
Dorticos's best win was a close decision over Masternak. Imagine if that were Wilder's best win! Wilder's best win at HW is Ortiz: ranked in the top 6 of Rings end of year rankings from 2015-2020. Wilder stopped him twice. Gassiev's best win at HW is Kem Ljungquist: a poor man's Otto Wallin (Gassiev lost to the actual Wallin). Hunter was barely ranked in the HW top 10 at his peak and he had three decent results at HW. Dorticos never tried, got schooled by Briedis, KO'd by Gassiev, recently lost to Ramirez, so given the evidence he didn't have the ability to be top 10 at HW.
"Probably still has the 2nd best resume at behind Usyk among cruiserweights" I'd say Briedis: twice as many fights against notable cruiserweights (8 vs 4). Gassiev's cruiser resume is way better than Hunter's but Hunter had more belief he could do something at HW after losing to Usyk. One could also argue Opetaia over Gassiev if you value Briedis x2 more highly than Gassiev's wins and/or take points away for losing/controversial decisions.
Come off it. Gassiev would have knocked Hunter the **** out at Cruiserweight. And you know that deep down. Levels. Usyk nearly stopped Hunter and Gassiev punches much harder. Wtf, stopping Dorticos in the last round still counts as a Stoppage!! lol talking about clutching straws. Gassiev the only person to ever stop the granite chinned Dorticos to this day- a very impressive stat. No idea what you're going on about with Okolie and Gevor, Gassiev never fought either. Madrimov was never as impressive as Gassiev was in their world title wins. Gassiev was evens going in to the Usyk fight for a reason (it was seen as a total 50/50 fight), whereas Madrimov was a huge underdog is his fight against a P4Per.
Briedis has the quantity over Gassiev, but Lebedev was a reigning champion who'd just unified belts and he can be argued to be better than anyone on Briedis's resume. I was also a fan of Diablo, so even he was faded, was a very good win for Gassiev in my eyes. Though I'd have no problem if you rank Glowacki as a better win or even Huck. And they both have the excellent win over Dorticos, so It's pretty similar looking records I'd say. Opetaia should surprass Gassiev, but he hasn't yet. Briedis was half checked out from the game even going into their first fight as he was spending more time calling out Jake Paul than training. And Michael Hunter has done nothing at cruiser so he's not really relevant to the subject.
Nonsense. Perez, Glazkov, shot Haye, shot Chagaev, Arreola, etc were all ranked from 2014 onwards by ring magazine. None of these guys were even as good as Hunter. Its trolling to suggest Dorticos couldn't beat these guys. How is a shot Haye who immediately afterwards was stopped by Bellew supposed to beat Dorticos? Let alone Glazkov who most had losing to a 39 year old Cunningham? Or a Chagaev who was ranked up until his loss to Lucas Browne?
It's fairly subjective but I think Briedis certainly goes down as a greater cruiser than Gassiev. Fights against Huck, Perez, Usyk, Gevor, Glowacki, Dorticos, Opetaia x2 > Lebedev, Wlodarczyk, Dorticos, Usyk. Briedis was a titlist every year from 2017-2022 and a Ring champion, Gassiev a titlist from 2016-2018 and never a Ring champion. Even Briedis's best HW win over Charr was a far more impressive performance than Gassiev's HW wins, then there's the Wallin loss. Their respective Usyk performances suggest a different level. One of the reasons why it's difficult to rank cruisers is because their HW performance always factor into it on some level and their victims often have fought at HW themselves. I rate Hunter as a better cruiserweight win than Gassiev because he did much better against Usyk, much better against their common opponent Isiah Thomas and much better at HW thus far. But Gassiev certainly has the better cruiser resume. When Opetaia beat Briedis the first time he was about 21 months removed from schooling Dorticos more comprehensively than Gassiev did and he was the same age as Lebedev when Gassiev beat him, who was a significantly smaller cruiser. I don't think Gassiev would have beaten Briedis, even the 39 year old version in the Opetaia rematch, plus Opetaia is unbeaten at cruiser, has been a Ring champion for over three years and even the No.2 at cruiser Ramirez doesn't want to fight him. If he moved up to HW after his next win and won a title or even just beat a contender, he'd go down as a greater cruiser than Gassiev (Opetaia already has 5 defences, Gassiev 2). The impression of the cruiser resume gets boosted when a fighter does well at HW and vice versa.
Dorrian, I consider you to be a good poster and have been nothing but respectful to you. This has nothing to do with loving or hating a fighter. Madrimov was a cherry pick gone wrong. This guy has literally beat no one. Gassiev was on a tremendous run destroying top 10 cruisers. If Madrimov was beating the Charlo, Harrison, Castanos of the division it would be comparable.
I don't think Dorticos would beat Hunter, who was a legitimate top 10 HW at one stage with dominant wins over Bakole and Kuzmin and a draw with Povetkin, ducked by Whyte. I do think Hunter would have beaten Masternak and by a clearer margin than Dorticos did. I also think Hunter would have beaten Gassiev, who was being outboxed by Isiah Thomas before fouling out with a NC, scraped past former LHW Lebedev, got utterly schooled by Usyk and lost to Wallin. Hunter had the style to beat HW's, especially the slower ones, as an agile mover with quick feet and hands. Dorticos not so much, hence he never made an attempt. I don't doubt that Dorticos could have scraped into the top 10 by beating an overhyped fighter or old name but he wouldn't have been there legitimately, just as Charles Martin wasn't legitimately a champion-level fighter. Some fighters are overrated and some underrated, Chisora for instance has barely touched the top 10 Ring rankings, if ever and he's better than all of the HW's you listed barring Hunter. I don't think Wallin was legitimately one of the top 10 heavyweights in the world and I doubt Dorticos would have beaten him given that Gassiev failed. I don't see what he's done in his career to suggest he could have ever been a legit top 10 HW, same for Gassiev.
Hes like one of 30 fighters you could reasonably put in the top 10. Hes 0-2 against HW contenders otherwise undefeated at HW. Undefeated at CW except Usyk undefeated against Bridger contenders. Its an open question that will be answered(hopefully) as the years pass. Wallin losing to AJ and Chisora was a serious step backward. The brief period between Wallin v Gassiev and Joshua v Wallin was when Gassievs reputation really peaked. There have only been like 10 good CW/HW combo fighters and hes one of them. But thats cause guys good enough to be CW/HW combo fighters and willing to challenge themselves are usually HWs all along. Gassievs a guy we know is good but he probably isn't one of the best HWs of the era. You can make a case hes the 4th best HW Usyk beat over Hunter, Chisora and Witherspoon? Him and Hunter are Usyks 2 "proven" CW opponents. Thats really Gassievs legacy.