Muhammad Ali vs Usyk who takes it?

1966 Ali

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2018 Usyk

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And the winner of The Muhammad Ali Cup ... Muhammad Ali.

 

Chuvalo and the rest are totally irrelevant. The most similar heavyweight that Ali fought to Usyk is Mildenberger, for Usyk to Ali it's Hunter.

Mildenberger was dropped many times in his career and KO'd in 1 by 30-12-2 D. Richardson. The judges had it 4-3-1 Ali in the rounds where there were no KD's. Which suggests that had Mildenberger even possessed a strong chin, it would have been significantly more competitive than it was and it was already 154-144 in landed punches. Had Milde possessed Usyk's range of abilities it would have been a massacre.

Briedis was an excellent cruiserweight champion (schooled and sparked 245 lbs Charr in 5 with one shot, schooled joint longest reigning cruiser champ Huck, nullified southpaw Perez, KO'd Glowacki in 3, schooled Dorticos and has never been dropped, let alone stopped, let alone stopped in 1 by a journeyman, let alone stopped multiple times by journeymen. Nor was Briedis a featherfisted 195 pounder in ring with a 31% KO ratio and 0 KO's in his last 5. Although the vast majority had Usyk winning in Briedis's backyard, Briedis gave a better account than Anthony Joshua did either time: the same Anthony Joshua you picked to KO Usyk in 1-2 rounds, based on absolutely nothing.

 

Ali stopped Liston, Foreman, Frazier, Lyle, Quarry, Bonavena, Patterson, Ellis, Folley ... not to mention four of the five guys he fought in 1966 ...

And you're bragging about Briedis and his power? Because he stopped Charr?

At this point, quite a few lighter weight boxers have moved up and won heavyweight belts.

David Haye did. Roy Jones did. Michael Moorer did. Michael Spinks did. Evander Holyfield did. Toney did, briefly. And Usyk has.

The difference is the fans of all those other fighters didn't have the totally 'misguided' notion that all the fighters they faced in title fights in their lighter divisions were better than the top heavyweights in history, like some Usyk fans seem to do.

Holyfield fans didn't insist Qawi, DeLeon, Ocasio, Parkey, etc. could beat the best heavyweights of all time.

Haye fans weren't blathering on about how Mormeck would beat the top heavyweights in history.

Nobody was going on about how Jirov and Leslie Stewart and Eddie Mustafa and Mike McCallum would beat guys like a prime Mike Tyson.

But we get unranked-at-heavy and never-won-anything-at-heavyweight Gassiev beats a prime Mike Tyson threads around here.


Gassiev didn't even win a round against Usyk, but he fought him in a title fight at cruiserweight, so, apparently, that means Gassiev beats prime Mike Tyson in some minds.

Hunter won a couple rounds off Usyk, so let's just pretend Hunter is a prime Ali, and Usyk beat Hunter, so, therefore, Usyk beats Ali by a WIDE margin.

NONE of Usyk's cruiserweight opponents have won anything at heavyweight.

Nothing. Not a damn thing.

Usyk became a champ at heavyweight. Usyk did. That doesn't mean THEY did.

And beating Chazz Witherspoon, edging Chisora 7-5 in rounds, beating Joshua and barely edging Briedis 7-5 and 6-6 doesn't exactly put him over the best heavyweight in his prime for me.

Sorry. No dice.

1966 Ali beats 2018 Usyk. Hell, Briedis basically did.

 

Ali wasn't 50/50 in there imo. Watch the fight in full and try to mute the crowd if you can. All the stuff about Ali struggling heavily is blown up, a bit similar to Usyk vs Bellew. Ali got caught with some lead jabs and lefts which pushed him in the ropes to clinch every now and then but it was overexaggerated by the crowd reacting to every single thing Mildenberger did like simple jabs which didn't even connect. There were even times where Ali made Mildenberger miss his entire flurry of punches and the crowd acted as if Ali was in serious trouble.

Ali had a bit of trouble but he won most of the rounds in clear fashion, dropped Mildenberger like 3 times and beat him to a stoppage.

 

"And you're bragging about Briedis and his power? Because he stopped Charr?"

Stoppages are about a lot more than one punch power (you should know better than most given that Fury KO/TKO'd GOAT right hand one punch KO artist Wilder twice and survived him every time over three fights) and Briedis had far more one punch power than Ali, let alone a Mildenberger.

"didn't have the totally 'misguided' notion that all the fighters they faced in title fights in their lighter divisions were better than the top heavyweights in history"

Rather than the misguided notion that Joshua would KO Usyk in 1-2 rounds. No one to my knowledge has claimed that say, Mchunu or Glowacki are better than the top heavyweights ever, talk about a strawman argument.

"Gassiev beats a prime Mike Tyson threads around here."

That was essentially a troll thread by a guy who likes making threads like that.

"NONE of Usyk's cruiserweight opponents have won anything at heavyweight."

One unfounded assumption is that heavy is automatically far superior to cruiser, back then at least it wasn't. Usyk's cruiser opponents spent most of their careers chasing cruiserweight belts for a variety of reasons, one being how difficult it is to get fights at heavy as a non-Western cruiser without a WBO mandatory position upon moving up (and it still took more than 2 years of waiting for Usyk even then). The best cruiserweights Usyk fought (Hunter, Briedis, Gassiev) were good/dangerous enough to win a heavyweight title, especially if promoted and matched well like lesser fighters Martin, Parker and even Stiverne.

"over the best heavyweight in his prime for me."

Ali's not the best heavyweight in his prime, he's "the greatest", which is something entirely different. There is no fact based argument why Ali is "better" than Usyk ability-wise, no elite athlete from almost 60 years ago in any sport is better than their broad equivalent today. The arguments were already made in my first post in the thread.

"Hell, Briedis basically did."

Champ Briedis lost 7-5 on the official cards in Latvia, whereas Ali was all but KO'd by Cooper (prior to DQ-worthy corner interventions) and was 4-3-1 in non-KD rounds on the official cards in Germany with a relatively small, weak-chinned, featherfisted southpaw Euro champ. And Frazier + Norton actually did.

 

I'm sure you're right.

Let me just go change my vote.

Almost there. Can't quite reach the button.

 

Considering 1966 Ali is often considered to be an untouchable Marvel superhero in H2H matchups it was a very questionable performance against a relatively small, weak-chinned, featherfisted Euro champ with mediocre amateur pedigree, who was his first southpaw opponent in 6 years and first as a pro. Ali was winning clearly with the KD's (thanks to Milde's suspect chin/defence) but in non-KD rounds it was 4-3-1 officially after 11 and the Compubox stats say what they say: 154-144, reflecting the fight's generally competitive nature. Perhaps if you or I counted the punches in slow motion we'd get somewhat different figures from that but I doubt it would be very disproportionate.

It comes down to whether you believe that that Ali could bridge the levels gap between southpaw Mildenberger and super-talent southpaw Usyk, who has an absurd number of advantages that are totally unfair, like studying Ali extensively, fighting many opponents influenced by Ali, having a style from a previously closed off part of the world + 50 years in the future and the strongest, most advanced PED's he can get away with. Is it a realistic proposition considering what we know about every other sport from 1966-2018?

 

LOL see how people that argue from stats alone are so sad? Anyone saying Mildenberger gave Ali a hard time are obviously biased. But I guess that's becoming the norm in an era of people just searching out info on the net for 15 minutes, as opposed to those of us who actually watched the fights.

 

Usyk went 6-6 and 7-5 twice on the cards against Briedis, and Usyk struggled to win 7-5 on two cards with Chisora ... but clearly Usyk SWEEPS a prime Ali on the cards because ... (drumroll) Ali only floored Karl Mildenberger three times in three separate rounds before stopping him in the 12th.

See how obvious that is?

At this point, I'm just nodding and agreeing.

 

Ali didn`t do much until the 5th and was getting tagged quite often.

 

Chiora was holding Usyk`s arm stopping his movement up until the rf warned him in the 6th, Usyk dominated from then on.

 

Many fighters were crude in the 60`s but a lot are still crude now, however Usyk isn`t one of them and would have beat any heavyweight from the 60`s. While we`re talking about the 60`s Ray Robinson was ahead of his time in the 40`s and early 50`s, there were exceptions to the rule.

 

Fail to see how you can make an argument for Usyk. He's never faced anyone close to Ali level

Usyk's resume is non-comparable to Ali's, especially at heavyweight.

Joshuax2, Gassiev, Breidis, Chisora and Bellew vs Foreman, Frazier x3, Norton x2, Liston x2