Mildenberger stood 6'1 ½” and weighed between 190 and 200 lbs.

Briedis would stop him

 

Couple things before I go to bed.

First, the original post says simply: "If Karl Mildenberger had been born the same year as Usyk, how would his career have panned out at cruiser or/and heavyweight?"

Mildenberger was born in November 1937. Usyk was born in January 1987. So, basically, a little more than 49 years separates them.

Keep in mind, Karl Mildenberger turned pro in October 1958, at the age of 20. Usyk turned pro at the age of 26, in September 2013.

If they'd have been born the same year, there would've been little overlap with Usyk, for STARTERS.

Karl's career, at 29, was coming to an end as Usyk, at 29, was just beginning to challenge for titles.

For example:

In December 1960, having just turned 23, Mildenberger beat 76-fight pro Franco Cavichii (a very good European heavyweight). When Usyk turned 23 in 2010, he was still an amateur.

In October 1963, at the age of 25 (a month short of his 26th birthday), Mildenberger beat another top European Heavyweight and 50-fight pro Joe Erskine. One month short of his 26th birthday, in December 2012, Usyk was still an amateur.

In April 1964, five months after turning 26, the 8th rated Ring heavyweight Karl Mildenberger fought to a draw with top 5 Ring heavyweight and 77-fight pro Zora Folley. Five months after turning 26, in 2013, Usyk was fighting in the World Series of Boxing, which didn't count on his pro log.

In February 1966, three months after turning 28, RING's 4th rated Karl Mildenberger, in his 53rd PRO FIGHT, beat 56-fight pro Eddie Machen. Three months after his 28th birthday, in April 2015, in his 7th PRO FIGHT fight, Usyk faced Andrey Knyazev.

Seven months later, in September 1966, still 28, in his 55th PRO FIGHT, Karl fought the "Prime" Muhammad Ali for the World's heavyweight title. Seven months after fighting Knyazev, still 28, Usyk fought Pedro Rodriguez.

If Karl had been born in January 1987, I highly doubt it would've taken him nine years and 55 pro fights to get a cruiserweight title fight (like it did in the 1960s at the heavyweight title). The cruiserweights weren't that deep in the early 2010s.

But, EVEN IF IT HAD, the cruiserweight champions in 2015 were Glowacki (WBO), Victor Emilio Ramirez (IBF), Yoan Pablo Hernandez (WBC), and Denis Lebedev (WBA).

And if he'd gotten a cruiserweight title fight earlier, he'd been facing guys like Wlodarczyk and Zsolt Erdei.

None of them were a "prime" Muhamamd Ali in 1966, for God's sake.

By the summer of 1967, at the age of 29, Karl was the #1 rated WBA contender and top 5 by Ring. But his career, nearly 60 fights in, was coming to a close.

49 years later, in 2016, at the age of 29, Usyk only had nine pro fights and he was preparing to challenge Glowacki for his first title.

If Karl had been born the same year as Usyk, Karl's career would be coming to a close while Usyk's title run was about to begin.

Do any of you think Karl Mildenberger, the guy who faced the Eddie Machen, Zora Folley, Muhammad Ali's of the world in the 1960s, ... could hang with cruiserweight champs like Wlodarczyk, Hernandez, Ramirez, Erdei, Lebedev, Glowacki, etc. ?

Of course, he could.

I'm sure Karl would manage to find a few cruiserweight champions he could beat. Or I'm sure he'd have won a vacant strap from Fragomeni or Makabu or Troy Ross or Aleksandr Alekseyev or whoever others won them off of.

Like I said, for the most part, those are who the cruiserweight champions have been ... a bunch of 190-200-pound Karl Mildenbergers.

A few better. Some/many worse. And many of those cruiserweight champs from 2010 to 2015 were worse.

 

A time-machined Karl Mildenberger may well have not amounted to anything more than a journeyman in the modern cruiserweight division because all sports progress considerably over two generations rather than remain static forever or regress.

But your assessment of the cruiserweight division hasn't been good has it? "Joshua-Usyk will look like Frazier-Foster and Tyson-Spinks", as if Usyk was Eric Molina and the cruiserweight division is complete trash. That "analysis" wasn't even rooted in anything historical: the most relevant cruiser-heavy comparisons of an undisputed cruiser champ moving up were Holyfield vs Bowe and Lewis, 4/5 of which went the distance and even the one that didn't was highly competitive before the 8th round stoppage.

 

I'm sure Karl could've beaten Giacobbe Fragomeni or Alexander Aleksayev or Zsolt Erdei or Ilungu Makubu like others did to win titles.

Everyone at Cruiserweight from 2010 on wasn't Usyk. Not even Makubu.

If you can hang with Folley, Machen and Ali in the 1960s, Zsolt Erdei and Victor Ramirez don't have you shaking in your boots.

 

My assessment of the cruiserweight division before the Joshua-Usyk fight was there had been 60-odd cruiserweight champions ... and only TWO had won any version of the heavyweight title.

Usyk became the third. I was happy for him.

Cruiserweight champs Camel, DeLeon, Ocasio, Gordon, Murphy, Crous, Ratliff, Qawi, Benton, Parkey, Belbouli, Glen McCrory, Daniels, Pultz, Lampkin, Havna, Massimiliano Duran, Czyz, Wamba, Warring, Booze, Cole, Bott, Giovannini, Norris, Michalczewksi, Rocchigiani, Miller, Dominguez, Washington, Grant, Thompson, Toney, Mayfield, Tiozzo, Gomez, Williams, Nelson, Jirov, Hill, Mormeck, Braithwaite, Davis, Bell, Maccarinelli, Wlodarczyk, Cunningham, Guillermo Jones, Fragomeni, Adamek, Ramirez, Huck, Erdei, Lebedev, Bellew, Briedis, Glowacki, Gassiev, Okolie, Makabu and Goulamirian ... did/have not.

The Usyk hysteria is at an all-time high at the moment, like it was when Andy Ruiz beat Joshua. If Usyk loses his belts four months from now, people may come back down to earth.

Right now, people think Usyk can beat anyone who ever lived. It's a little much.

And if Karl Mildenberger had been born in 1987, he'd be on that list above. He was better than most of them.

 

Why? Because Mildenberger, who got KO'd by 60's journeyman/domestic level fighters, gave a prominent cruiser-sized champ from half a century ago problems? Doug Jones did even better than Mildenberger, I suppose he would be a champ today as well.

It's a strawman to hold the absolute worst cruiser champs as being representative, in the same way it would be a strawman to imply that the likes of Charles Martin or Joseph Parker were representative of this generation's heavyweight champions. Obviously not every cruiser champ was Usyk, who is a uniquely talented fighter, but there were many very good ones: Briedis, Gassiev, Lebedev, Huck and Haye to name just five. Not that you rated Usyk at all until he did what many of us predicted he would do and outbox AJ.

 

TAKE A BREATH.

I just posted ALL THE CRUISERWEIGHT CHAMPIONS throughout history who didn't win a heavyweight title. It's basically ALL OF THEM, except three.

There are no straw men. Karl would've been fine.

I'm going to bed now.

 

"And if Karl Mildenberger had been born in 1987, he'd be on that list above."

Are we talking about Karl with modern advantages or Karl as he was from the 60's? The former would give him a better chance of getting his hands on a belt but there have always been weak champions who got lucky on a particular night.

Your explanations for why only two cruiserweight champions had won HW belts were lazy, which is why Usyk's performance blindsided you. Some elite cruisers want to become undisputed in their division for legacy (like Usyk) before they move up and others don't want to move up for health or family reasons (like Lebedev). Cruisers who tend to move up may do so for money or because they've reached their level at cruiser (Hunter moving up to avoid the top cruisers, Bellew moving up to cherrypick a shot Haye in a big money fight rather than defend against Briedis) or because they're too old/undisciplined to shed the pounds. These factors disproportionately select for weaker cruisers making the transition to HW. Stronger cruisers Briedis and Huck didn't stay at HW for long but Briedis did a vastly better job on Charr than Povetkin did and many thought that Huck beat Povetkin, who was a top 5 HW for about a decade.

We knew that two of the better cruisers who moved up: Holyfield and Haye, won titles. We knew that Usyk's record at cruiser was the best we'd ever seen, in a much stronger cruiser division than existed in Holyfield's day. We knew that Usyk was a supremely talented amateur who had schooled SHW's in the semi-pro WSB, beaten AJ-conquerors Majidov and Nistor and handled a very well-prepared and less worn Chisora far more comfortably than Parker, who would have been even more competitive with AJ than he was minus the bodyguard referee. We knew that Usyk was actually bigger (minus fat mass) than Andy Ruiz, Povetkin and Parker. We knew that Usyk was levels above Andy Ruiz and not 39 like Povetkin or 41 and inactive like Wlad. We knew that AJ's entire pro career experience against southpaws amounted to 1.5 rounds against Charles Martin.

No cruiser had comfortably outboxed a reigning elite SHW champ over 12 before (much less in their backyard as the B-side) so it's not surprising that people are hyped about it. Usyk is no Andy Ruiz; he's not going to underestimate AJ, put on 20 lbs, party non-stop and not train for the rematch. I also didn't hear mumblings from AJ of being willing to listen to offers for step aside money when the Ruiz rematch was on the agenda.

 

Oh bull****. Don't be a Monday Morning Quarterback.

Usyk was a 34-year-old former cruiserweight who had never beaten a ranked heavyweight in his life. He was fighting Joshua at home in front of the first large British crowd attending a Joshua fight in years and Joshua was the clear favorite to win.

I remember when the cruiserweight division was formed and the first title fight ended in a draw and people thought they'd scrap the whole idea.

Do you know how many cruiserweight champs I've watched who announced they were going to fight for and win the heavyweight title over the last 40+ years?

TWO were successful. Sorry if I didn't CLEARLY see that Usyk was going to score the big upset. I said I expected Joshua to blow him out and if he didn't we needed to reevalute Joshua's career. And he lost. And I was happy for Usyk. I rooted for him during the entire fight. I love upsets. It's one reason I watch boxing.

I don't dislike the guy. I just didn't think he'd win. Because only 2 out of the other 65 or so managed to do so.

Don't be a "dick" and pretend like it was clear as day Joshua was going to lose.

And don't start that "you don't know **** cruiserweights because you didn't pick Usyk" garbage ... because I think everyone who has posted here for a decade or so is getting a little sick of newer people pulling that bull****. One guy got banned tonight for doing so.

Everyone gets them wrong sometimes. Sorry I didn't call the big upset. That's why they're called upsets. They aren't expected.

Now **** off.

 

I literally wrote a post titled "AJ-Usyk is highly competitive" and my prediction was that Usyk would outbox AJ and get robbed. This is not "Monday morning quarterbacking". That would be saying something like "If AJ had just been more aggressive he would have KO'd Usyk". We'll see if that theory is accurate in the rematch, if AJ even has the balls to attempt it.

Who was the last guy that AJ blew out? If the undisputed four belt cruiserweight champion couldn't do at least as well as Dominic Breazeale, the cruiserweight division must be utter dogsh*t.

 

Dubblechin believes that.

 

There careers are not apples to apples. Uysk got a late start to his pro career but that was because he had exactly 350 amateur fights and those fights were not afternoon smokers. They were at the highest level in the world's and Olympics which he won gold at both.

I think you are vastly over rating Karl who was a good fighter and top contender but not a guy on Uysk's level.

 

There are 63 cruiserweight champions who aren't on Usyk's level. We are not comparing Mildenberger and Usyk's boxing ability ... the guy asked how Mildenberger would do if they were born the same year.

I AM THE ONE who pointed out one started at age 20 and the other started at age 26. I know Usyk got a late start in his pro career. I wrote a WHOLE POST describing where they both were when Karl turned pro younger and Usyk turned pro later. It's a couple posts up.

When Karl was fighting top heavyweight contenders, at the same age, Usyk hadn't even turned pro. Karl's run at the top was ending when Usyk's, at the same age, was beginning. Karl would've done fine against the class in the early 2010s when Usyk was still trying to win a gold.

Some of you guys saw Usyk and Mildenbergers names in the same post by the OP and had a meltdown. Their career arcs were completely different.

 

How in the hell were the most "relevant comparisons Holyfield-Bowe and Holyfield-Lewis?

Holyfield had beaten a string of ranked top 10 heavyweight contenders before he fought Douglas, and he'd defended his heavyweight title against two Hall of Fame heavyweights, LOST to Bowe, and three years after first becoming heavyweight champion, finally eaked out a win over Bowe in 93.

By comparison, Usyk beat unranked Chazz Witherspoon and decision unranked Chisora.

One with a half dozen wins over rated contenders, a two year heavyweight title reign and regaining the championship for the second time ... compared to Usyk beating CHAZZ and CHISORA ... isn't a relevant comparison AT ALL.

How in the WORLD is that LIke Holyfield REGAINING the heavyweight title he held for years from Bowe. (And the Lewis-Holyfield comparison is beyond dumb. It was a unification between two aging, multiple-time heavyweight champions.

Usyk never beat a ranked heavyweight before facing Joshua. How was he like the Holyfield who held two heavyweight titles while attempting to unify against Lennox Lewis?



And the only TWO champs (before Joshua) who were bad enough to lose to a cruiserweight fighting for the heavyweight title for the first time were Buster Douglas and Nicolai Valuev. Sorry I didn't think Joshua was on THEIR Level.

For all the crap I give him, I thought Joshua was better than Buster and Valuev. My mistake, I guess.

You need to get away from me. I'll be putting all clowns like you on ignore from now on. I had such a wonderful evening watching boxing, and you spoiled it.

With that, goodbye to you.

 

Frankly I think the recent cruiserweight division is likely better than the heavyweight division Mildenberger fought in. If anything he does worse in Usyk's era.