Power is overrated, precision and timing are more important. A less powerful shot when the opponent isn't braced will do more damage than a more powerful one when they are. Also chin punches are more likely to rattle the brain and KO than punches to the top/side of the head, so in that sense shorter fighters actually have the advantage. This content is protected That said, if you go by their KO percent in HW it's Hrgovic > Parker > Usyk but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Usyk KO'd Dubois twice with precise chin punches even though Hrgovic's punches were probably more "powerful".
Obviously Hrgovic and J-Park are natural career HWs and way bigger than Usyk But Usyk KO Dubois x 2 Hrgovic cracked Dubois flush many times and in quick succession and couldn't drop him Usyk hurt AJ with single shots and had him in big trouble with a sustained assault J-Park didn't hurt AJ To be fair he did drop Chisora and Usyk was only able to hurt Chisora albeit that was a 217lb Usyk in his 2nd fight at HW and he grew bigger and became more powerful after that and J-Park and Chisora were roughly about the same size as each other whereas Usyk was almost 40lbs lighter than Chisora Then we have the common opponents they share who Usyk beat in the WSB and J-Park fought in the pros: Big Joe Joyce and Junior Fa. Neither of them dropped them but Usyk was giving away 27lbs to Big Joe and just under 40lbs to Fa whereas J-Park was giving away 16lbs and 20lbs respectively to them. Usyk would've stopped FA in the pros IMO Hrgovic also fought Big Joe Joyce, once in the ams, the other in the pros, but he couldn't drop him either albeit he was 25lbs lighter than him in their pro meeting So all things considered you have got to go with The Amazing Usyk at #1. Surely. How can we not?
Usyk Parker Hrgovic with Usyk watch his feet when he’s setting up to punch hard - like the Dubois 2 knockout - his is more of really good technique/sequencing rather than brute power.
All 3 are relatively light punchers, but Usyk keeps putting guys on ***** street and IMO he is clearly way above the other 2.
Shot for shot Hrgovic probably hits hardest, but Parker and Usyk's biggest shots are more impressive than anything we've seen from him power wise. Between Usyk and Parker i'd give it to Usyk. His speed and accuracy allows him to catch and drop guys when they don't expect it.
That does lot mean anything since first time dubois went down from a simple jab and on the second fight he stood in the middle with a flashing "punch here" neon sign on his chin. When it comes to raw punching power Hrgovic : 73% ko rate Parker : 66% ko rate Usyk : 62.5% ko rate I would say 1) hrgovic 2) parker and 3 ) usyk . Usyk on the other hand vastly outperforms both in timing and precision .
It means everything. Usyk is a slick boxer who wasn't even trying to knock his opponents out in numerous fights. When he actually enters the ring with bad intentions and sits down on his shots with the intention of doing so bad things happen to them Massey, Razvan Cojanu, Dillian Whyte, Junior Fa, and The Dosser all took J-Park the distance I highly doubt any of them would do the same vs Usyk over 10-12 rounds especially vs Dark Usyk who wanted to get them out of there. With the exception of Massey those guys have all been stopped multiple times and there are numerous other fighters who have beaten J-Park or gone the distance vs him I believe Usyk would or could stop if he really wanted to and Hrgovic has been taken the distance by fighters I would back Usyk to stop too Usyk has been taken the distance by the iron-jawed trio of Briedis, Gassiev, and Hunter neither of whom have ever been dropped, let alone stopped sans the KD Usyk scored vs Hunter when the ref deemed the ropes kept him up AJ has been stopped x 2, once by the murderous punching Dubois and the other time by Fat Andy who was a lot heavier than him and way heavier than Usyk and is a big puncher with very fast hands Belly has been down many times but he has otherworldly powers of recovery and has never been stopped Chisora has been stopped a bunch of times but he's super tough and durable and that's to be expected when you have fought the calibre of opposition as he has and fight with a style as wreckless and aggressive as he does Glowacki was undefeated and had never been stopped when he fought Usyk and Usyk boxed to orders in that fight and was content on just outboxing him for 12 rounds. Glowacki has subsequently been stopped a bunch of times but he was past his best for some of those and they were all vs massive punchers 2 of him were massive weight bullies who are now huge HWs and Glowacki was a small CW Huh? The fact Usyk knocked Dubois out with a jab only bolsters me argument not undermines it and when Usyk really sat down on his shots in the rematch we all saw what happened. It was a KO of the year contender and rightly so. That's the same Dubois who was coming off KO/stoppage wins of AJ, Hrgovic and Miller and none of them could could even drop Dubious once, let alone x 4. Did you actually watch the Hrgovic fight, George Fox? Hrgovic cracked that chin flush dozens of times with his big right hand and Dubois took them all Both Hrgovic and Miller have a higher KO% than Usyk and they cracked Dubois clean and often with their best shots and guess what happened? Nothing
But then look at the quality of their opponents... It's no surprise Hrgovic has a better KO rate when he's fought more low level opponents than the other two. Let's take a more sensible metric... Against gatekeepers or contenders, what's their KO rate? (KO in bold, losses in italic) Usyk - 7 wins, 2 KO's - 29%. (Chisora, AJ x2, Fury x2 - Dubois x2) Parker - 11 fights, 8 wins, 1 KO - 13% (Takam, Ruiz jr, Joshua, Whyte, Chisora x2, Joyce, Wilder, Zhang, Bakole, Wardley). Hrgovic - 3 fights, 2 wins, 0 KO's - 0% (Zhang, Dubois, Joyce) By that metric, Usyk's the most likely to beat good opponents by stoppage and Hrgovic the least... Albeit, a single stoppage win at that level would boost Hrgovic % very quickly.
Dubois quit the first time against Usyk. The second looked like he was off his cycle. Had no durability at all. He looked like he took harder shots from miller an hrgovic than in the 2nd Usyk fight
