Is Lomachenko overrated?

There's a reason for my trivializing of AJ's record, because I'm pretty sure the guy I was responding to, is an AJ fanboy, and that was probably his primary motivation for bringing up Usyk.

The amateur WSB don't officially count, and I said, aside from the Wlad win, skillwise, Mchunu is a level or two above Takam, Hunter is far more technially proficient than Whyte, Huck may be shopworn, but so what, his wins over Kucher and Afolabi, and going the distance with Briedis proved he's still decent, and probably more durable and far trickier than Breazeale or Martin.

 

Wow, I'm gonna have to school you a little later. This is a deplorable post. I have some stuff to do first.

 

Okay, here goes....

First, I'm not all that hepped up on the Heavyweight division, as a disclaimer, quite frankly I think its a shitheap. Most of the guys competing there are no talent goons who can't box their way out of a paper bag, and the only reason people think some of them are talented is because they look decent against even worse bums, therefore creating the illusion that they're good. Cruiserweight however, I hold in high esteem, and have for years, you can go back and see from my post history I've been hyping Cruiserweight since I joined back in 2013, started posting in 2014, the first of the 600 or so Educate Yourselves threads I did was on Usyk, and Gassiev and Dorticos followed a month or two later, so you kind of get why I feel so passionately about him and the entire division.

Okay, Mchunu is a brilliant fighter, perhaps one of the most talented fighters in the sport, he has wins over nobodies? Really? His win over Eddie Chambers is vastly underrated, Eddie came into that match with 3 losses, one to Povetkin by UD, one to Wlad, and the third loss was to Adamek, in a match where he basically had one arm he injured his left arm in the first round, and it could have gone either way. He was schooled by Mchunu, didn't win one round. Then Mchunu followed that brilliant performance up with another one, he school Durodola from start to finish, made it look easy, the same Durodola that went on to KO Kudryashov, and give Briedis hell for the first 5 rounds, Durodola was a KO artist going into that match, he barely laid a finger on Mchunu. Okay, he lost to Makabu, and there is absolutely no shame in that, and since I'm one of about 8 people who actually saw Mchunu-Makabu, Mchunu performed magnificently for the first 6 or 7 rounds, he rocked Makabu hard in IIRC the third, and could have probably stopped him if he went all out, but Makabu is a beast, he knocked Bellew clean across the ring with his straight left, before fighting like an idiot and getting reckless, Makabu is one of two people to have stopped Glen Johnson, and that is NOT an easy feat, the last guy to do it was BHop in his prime 20 years ago. Makabu brought the pressure from start to KO, and quite frankly, it was impressive how many shots Mchunu took from Makabu before finally succumbing. The Mchunu is a great win for Usyk.

Okay, Hunter was inexperienced and didn't have any great wins, fine maybe he didn't but he did have a win over the slick and awkward Isiah Thomas, who was coming off of schooling Jordan Shimmell, who was a little bit of a hot prospect at the time, but that being said, Hunter was a good amateur, unlike Whyte, who wasn't, and remind me again of Whyte's best win pre-AJ? Or Martin's aside from a one legged injured Glazkov? Breazeale arguably lost against Kassi and was losing until he got lucky with Mansour, who had an injured tongue, Breazeale had no decent wins to speak of beforehand. Now, not much to separate them is it? Well, there is, watch some of Hunter's matches, you can kind of easily tell he's more skilled than those three.

Onto Glowacki, no his best win wasn't over past it Huck, he's the guy that made Huck past it (maybe), as far as his win over Cunningham goes, well, he didn't hold forearm and mug Steve like Tyson did, did he? He also didn't get dropped or hurt like Mansour did, Cunningham was coming off of a string of great performances, he beat Mansour, he beat the undefeated Visinia, he beat Glazkov and was robbed blind by the corrupt judges, then he beat Tarver, and got robbed again, it was a draw, and Steve hadn't been inactive. In fact Glowacki managed to beat Cunningham more impressively than top TMT prospect Tabiti did, who fought like a terrified little girl throughout. Glowacki has a string of other impressive wins, his stoppage win over the rugged tough as nails Matty Askin is vastly underrated, Askin should have a win over Ovill McKenzie, but the ref docked him two points, which did effect the final scorecards. Askin has recently looked stellar, knocking the undefeated top prospect Craig Kennedy the **** out brutally, and taken the other top prospect, the highly touted Tommy McCarthy to school almost stopping him as well. His wins over Altunkaya and Seferi were decent as well.

Finally to Marco, was he shot? Where's the proof? I don't have any, do you? He lost to Glowacki by KO, but he was winning the match and came closer to stopping Glowacki than Usyk did, in a brutal FOTY contender, that probably would have shaved years off of most fighters careers. Afterward, he took on Kucher, who went to war with Makabu, and arguably should have earned a draw in that match, I had it 6-6, well post Glowacki Huck basically dominated Kucher from start to finish, and this was the Kucher who was coming off of a first round career ending stoppage victory over Maccarinelli. Also Huck took revenge on Afolabi, who was coming off of a brutal KO win over Chakhkiev, and a FOTY war with Ramirez, Huck won every round, and bludgeoned Afolabi into submission. Fine he lost to Briedis, but so did Durodola and Mike Perez, this is far healthier Perez that had his mojo back, the same guy that Takam fought to a draw, Briedis is a spoiler, and so is Huck, it was an ugly match, and neither man looked stunning in it, that doesn't mean you can reflexively write him off, hell you could have written Huck off after he got stopped by Cunningham over a decade ago, and he came back to nearly break Johnny Nelson's record, and should have a win over Povetkin in the process.

Let's not forget about his wins in the WSB, which are arguably pro matches, all 5 rounds, no headgear, and guys get KTFO all the time, he beat Nistor with relative ease, this is the same Nistor that stopped AJ, he dominated and came close to stopping the very durable, very talented Magomedrasul Medzhidov, the same one the bveat AJ and had him rocked several times, he barely laid a finger on Usyk. He also has a win over Joe Joyce, who should be the 2016 Gold Medalist, it wasn't even competitive, Joyce ran after him the whole fight missing, getting tagged left and right, had it gone on a few more rounds, Usyk would have probably stopped him, he also beat Junior Fa, who's thusfar looked fairly good as a pro, the match was a shutout, and stopped the massive lummox Modugno in 2, also undefeated as a pro.

Not to mention he was only the second guy to stop Bruwer, and he did it in vicious fashion, that was an underrated damn fine win for a guy's 5th pro fight, as is his wins over Venter and Muller, who was coming off of going the distance with Masernak and a win over Kevin Lerena, South Africa's great hope at CW.

So yeah, my post kind of wasn't LOL worthy. Usyk does have a better resume than AJ, although AJ has 1 better single win than anything on Usyk's resume, but like you said about Huck, Wlad was well past his best when AJ beat him, was it a quality win at all? especially when you consider AJ had to literally walk through fire and brimstone to pull it off? Fine give him credit for it, but Wlad hadn't look good in years, and was coming off of a long layoff after being beaten soundly by Tyson Fury, kind of like Huck was coming off of being beaten soundly by Mairis Brieidis.

 

You do realize that Rossy and Dimitrenko aren't that bad right? Especially when Chambers fought them, Chambers isn't known for his power, he's known for his skills, they have questionable chins, but if you don't have power, both can pose a few issues. Its not an easy task to outbox Eddie, underrate him all you like, the only guys to outbox him are elite fighters.

Makabu lost to Bellew... so? Bellew had lost twice going into their match, against one of the P4P hardest punchers in the sport, and against Clev, before he was ruined by Kovalev, its pretty obvious that Bellew is packing a little more power after moving up, Makabu is a beast, Kucher is heavy handed and a talent, don't conveniently leave him off your dismissive recap, and if Glen Johnson is such **** and washed up, then tell me why Groves, Fonfara, Froch and Bute couldn't stop him before, and Yildirim and Skoglund couldn't stop him afterward?

Huck hadn't looked bad for years, Huck look like Huck, Huck always loses a few rounds and has close fights, because he's in a tough division with a lot of really talented fighters. Stop reflexively acting like just because someone loses there must be an excuse for it, he lost because Glowacki was the better man, and both of them were clearly up for the task that night, which is kind of why it was a FOTY.

What about his WSB matches? They're more impressive than any of AJ's non Wlad pro wins as well, here watch them, and you'll see what I mean.

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