Is Usyk a top 10 HW of all time...?

His top wins are better than many of the men I'd place above him. The only thing holding him back is the brevity of his resume.

He could reasonably crack the top 10, depending on your value system. If you value quality over quantity, I could see a case for it. Personally, I like a mixture of both.

His top wins compare favourably to the likes of Holyfield (usually ranked at the lower end of the top 10) and he lacks Holyfield's blemishes, e.g. losing the trllogy to Bowe, performing badly against and losing to Moorer.

Holyfield's greater longevity and depth—beating a larger volume of good fighters over a longer period—give him an overall edge in my book, but I wouldnt say there's a huge gap between the two.

 

I too value a combination of quality and quantity. Quality is of course significant in establishing the indicators of performance level - the context of results notwithstanding - while quantity provides a measure of consistency and confirmation of said quality. However, in this case, I do not think it is a matter of valuing one of these factors over the other, so much as it is a question of the measure and interpretation of "quality". That is, you likely see more of it in Usyk's seven-fight streak at heavyweight, while I perhaps do not value Usyk's top-wins as highly as you do.

Four of his seven wins are against Fury and Joshua (with one of those bouts being superfluous to requirements, IMO), neither of whom are likely to crack my Top-20 and one of whom will not even crack Top-30. While Joshua's is a solid scalp, I do not consider it to be on the same level as Fury's; not incidental in terms of its significance but nothing exceptional in the scheme of today's heavyweight division.

Thus, Fury is what I use here to serve as the comparative guide - in that I currently rate Dempsey (wins for Tunney), Holmes (wins for Spinks), Holyfield (wins for Bowe), Tyson (wins for Holyfield) as higher 'quality' opponents than Fury. I also view Norton's win over Ali, and Schmeling's win over Louis as more significant indicators of a ceiling of performance level than Usyk's against Fury.

Tunney rates Top-30, for mine and Spinks is a mile out - not even Top-50, in my book. Bowe is also in my Top-30, as are Norton and Schmeling.


While Holyfield seems to be the benchmark people are using to justify Usyk's placement in the Top-10 (and he is borderline in that respect - often seen in the Top-15 region), his heavyweight ledger is considerably deeper than Usyk's. So, I am not going to give plus-points to Usyk (and penalize Holyfield) for a lack of "blemishes" when he has seven heavyweight bouts to his name. If one is to combine quality and quantity, then this is simply not a fair comparison.

I see Usyk's Heavyweight career, as it currently stands, more closely aligned with that of Tunney's than that of Holyfield's. I also do not see Usyk as having achieved a level of heavyweight performance surpassing or even on a par with Norton (Ali), Schmeling (Louis) or Holyfield (Tyson x2). Even Bowe's wins over a prime Holyfield are superior to Usyk's over Fury, for mine. And, this is before the matter of 'quantity' is addressed in more detail, as well as the kind of schedule and longevity this requires.

 

That is a great post.

 

6 fights, he won them all. Doesn't raise or lower his overall record and/or achiements.

 

I don't see the Tunney comparison, but I do see Holyfield as the have several things in common: Olympic success, undisputed CW and HW champ. No, Usyk doesn't have the long pro record.

One issue many here are ignoring: Usyk has rampaged through the HW division while his country is at war. His family is in Ukraine, in a war zone. No one else in boxing history has had to go through that kind of pressure. This jumps him up any rankings as far as I'm concerned.

 

Jack Johnson , Joe Louis , Ali would beg to differ about your last paragraph.
And unlike Usyk, they actually DID rampage through the heavyweight division
under tremendous direst and threats to personal and family safety.
Using your formula, and not using what they accomplished in a boxing ring only
(Which was a lot more than Usyk)
They should be considered the top three heavyweights in history.
Right?

 

What does that mean for Vitali Klitschko’s ranking?

 

I don't see the comparison between Usyk and the likes of Tunney, Spinks. For me Usyk is more comparable to Holyfield two guys who are considered top 2 Cruiserweights of all time who moved up and had good success at Heavyweight.

The issue I have with people ranking Usyk in the top 10 Heavyweight rankings does his resume compare to Holyfield ? Who's in the lower tier of the top 10 ? I don't think so.

Beating 25 year old prime Bowe ----> Beating a mid 30s Fury.

Beating 1996 version of Tyson ----> Beating Joshua.

Then you have Holyfield beating the likes of....

Dokes
Thomas
Mercer
Moorer
Foreman
Holmes
Stewart
Douglas
Cooper

For me Holyfield has too much depth to his resume.

 

That's precisely the difference between Usyk and Holyfield I was talking about. Sure, they were both cruiserweights going up a division but, even with their respective, relative success, the difference in resume is too substantial to consider them alike as heavyweights, in my opinion.

Tunney also went up a division - after his immortalization at 175 - and beat the generational heavyweight champion of his day (Dempsey) and repeated the exercise in a rematch. He also beat a few other ranked heavyweights including a couple of Top-5's (Gibbons and Heeney), going 9-0-0 and retiring undefeated in the class.

Despite Dempsey's inactivity, I still think Tunney's bouts with him - particularly the rematch - made for a better pair of wins, with Dempsey being greater than Fury.

 

It's impossible to say, but I'm just glad to have lived in the era where it did occur!