Is Usyk the GOAT if he beats Fury?

Usyk - Dubois low blow. It was the worst of a number of low blows landed by Dubois - and even after the correct identification of that particular and obvious low blow - Dubois still persisted in throwing them.

 

Even assuming it was incorrectly judged an illegal blow due to political bias (and idiot Dubois, who is a prolific low blow merchant, did himself no favours by saying pre-fight that he would use illegal tactics to win) that's still conjecture, assuming that Usyk wouldn't have got up if he had to and that he wouldn't have survived the follow up. The fight went on, Dubois failed to capitalise on the "KO" punch and quit.

 

Usyk and Wilder could fight 100 times and Usyk would win 100 times.

Wilder is a can crusher and has been exposed as such.

 

Judging by his reaction I don’t think he would have gotten up that easy if at all.

 

NO!

 

Its unlikely any HW whose ever lived beats Wilder 100/100 times. The very nature of his skill set prevents that.

 

Seems to me that every discussion of Breland begins with his amazing amateur career, specifically his Olympic gold medal.

And Usyk is part of a long tradition of Olympic champions going on to win the professional heavyweight title.

Floyd Patterson
Muhammad Ali
Joe Frazier
George Foreman
Leon Spinks
Michael Spinks
Lennox Lewis
Wladimir Klitschko
Anthony Joshua
Oleksandr Usyk

Throw Ray Mercer and Alexander Povetkin in there; we have an even dozen.

 

If he then beats Parker, Zhang, Dubois and the new interim Champ Fres Oqeundo, he would be in the conversation

 

If they fought 100 times, Usyk would win 101 times.

 

I think he would, he's never been counted out before amateur or pro. He may well have been milking it for extra recovery time and sympathy from the referee, plus it demoralised Dubois. Depending on one's perspective it would be unsportsmanlike or smart.

 

You're missing the point their amateur backgrounds are not used to heighten their all time P4P rankings or in regards to how highly they're rated as professionals and that's what some fans are doing now for Usyk.

For example Ali's Olympic medal has no barring in regards to how highly he is rated as a professional. He's simply rated very highly for having the best resume of all time at Heavyweight aswell as having many memorable fights as a professional not because he won a gold medal in the amateurs.

 

There's no such thing really.. you can only really be the best of your era. Usyk is the #1 fighter of this era for me. Not just at HW but across all the weights. It was Pac & Floyd before.. Roy & Oscar before that.. these years are Usyk & Inoue imo.. a lot of people will shout Canelo.. but I thought he clearly lost to GGG twice. Crawford is a no from me too. The top 10 fighters imo since Floyd & Pac (in no particular order) are Usyk, Inoue, GGG, Crawford, Canelo, Beterbiev, Loma, Chocolatito, Josh Taylor (prime) & Bivol. Can't stand Ward he couldn't win fights without cheating.

 

GOAT is a such a loaded and - ultimately useless - term IMO, as it's next to impossible to really track advancements and changes over time in terms of how that affects both the individuals and the circumstances.

I know it's a contrived example, but could anyone realisticaly compare Isacc Newton, Einstein or Hawking etc to claim GOAT scientist etc?

Even on achievements for boxers (and other athletes in other sports), things change that mean the playing field is fundamentally different and even if it's not apples v oranges, it's at least Clementines vs Satsumas

 

Wilder couldnt stop Parker, Zhang, or Fury yet he's supposed to stop Usyk? What is the logic here? People dont like to count Wilder's fights against Parker and Zhang because he was old and shot at 39 years of age, but his best wins were over Luis Ortiz twice...and Ortiz was 39 years old.

So let's call it what it was. Wilder feasted on subpar opponents. He never stopped or beat a quality prime fighter. This idea that he had ATG power has a large asterisk in that he never landed any of that power on a fighter worth his weight in ability

 

Can crusher is not a skillset.

Ali, Foreman, Holmes, Usyk, Wlad, Vitali all beat Wilder anywhere, anytime, every time.