How is Usyk still the top HW at 38 when Ali was completely done at 38

Yeah getting old sucks . But mentally I'm still as sharp as ever at 74. No loss of brains for me.

However...my body is another story. In very good shape but aches and pains remind me that I'm an old guy.

 

Interesting that Harry Greb did little sparring. He treated his fights as training.

 

The simple answer is their careers aren't equal so they didn't age the same.

Ali fought 548 rounds in his career, 528 before Holmes. Usyks fought 206. Thats over 2.5 times as many and it was mostly accumulated in the 70s back to back in wars. In the 70s alone Ali had twice as many decisions as Usyk has had HW fights. Not counting Frazier III, Wepner, Lyle, Foreman, Shavers. All things equal Ali dealt with over twice the wear and tear Usyk did and its not equal because Ali faced the more dangerous opponents.

As late as the Berbick fight it was shown that putting Alis competition down a level or two rolled back the clock quite a bit. It was much earlier but the same with Coopman and Dunn. Part of Ali being embarassed by Holmes is he was fighting undefeated prime Larry Holmes. Fighting Usyk would roll back the clock as well.

29 year old Ali would shutout Usyk best case scenario for Usyk if his chin really is ATG. If its not he goes down easy.

 

Boxing isn't for rhe faint of heart.

 

Other way around

 

Having been KO’d/stopped already a few times sadly doesn’t bode well for him in terms of potential CTE. And, in terms of punishment, his last loss was much more a brutal beat down than a single punch KO loss.

 

In their respective primes, Ali got hit less than Usyk.

But then there was the 3.5 year layoff (and related deteriorations) and Ali’s second career during which he fought far more frequently, leaving absolutely no stone unturned in respect of fighting and defeating all other viable contenders/challengers.

There is also the question of possible PED usage which appears prevalent among today’s HWs - which, at least imo, is somewhat of a deal breaker if one is looking to make genuinely equitable comparisons between eras.

 

When folks said his legs were gone rhey didn't mean he was necessarily slow, just that he wasn't as fluid in his movement when he returned. I was watching Leonard-Hearns l and ll again, it was like two different Rays.

 

Precisely. Muhammad should have had more voices in his ear telling him to retire after Manila.

 

It's never been clear when PEDs entered the sport of boxing. Most people acknowledge the 90s boxers who were totally juiced out, but I doubt the drugs suddenly appeared and started only then.

By the 70s steroid use was already very prevalent in bodybuilding community and the Soviets were about 20 years into their state funded PED programs.

There is more drug testing now than in the 70s, when there was none. Of course testing doesn't actually stop usage.

 

Yes, I hear you but the focus is on when it began and , more importantly, proliferated in boxing. I think there’s little or no evidence of either during the 70s era.

I think some people began to speculate heavily on PED usage in the 70s in an attempt to offset the very distinction I made re obvious current PED usage as compared/opposed to earlier eras. An attempt to even up the ledger, so to speak.

At any rate, PEDs have become increasingly more widespread and more clinically purposed and beneficial with the passing of time.

 

This is the trend in today's sports where advances in sports medicine and nutrition has meant that players who years ago had to retire are still competing at the highest level like Lebron and Djokovic.

 

Exactly. People will just say "it's the PEDs!". No, I won't discount that exists but pro athletes invest much more in their their fitness and upkeep now, than in past generations.

Usyk, I guarantee devotes much more to his physical upkeep than Ali did, who admitted he didn't particularly enjoy working out and would overeat. It was the mentality of the day, by 30 you were an old man.

It's funny the way they really did try to depict Ali as this old man fighting a young Foreman, when he was only 34.