Both great fights. But in both fights, instead of being evidence that maybe they were reaching their natural level, the fight was largely interpreted by fans as evidence that the winner could be a dominant HW champ. We'll see, maybe Usyk can defy my expectations and the history that goes against top level HW success for small, light hitting hws who rely on movement. But Perez was insanely hyped after the Abdumsalamov fight and is now (overly, imo) minimized as a fighter. He's the same guy, a real tough smaller hw, natural CW, that plateaued at fringe contender at HW. Hopefully if Usyk wins the CW tournament but can't find success at HW at the same level, he's not thrown overboard and people just accept the problems of moving up for guys like him and respect him for the huge accomplishments he's carving out in his natural division.
I didn't mean they are similar in fighting style, (except for being small hw's), just similar level of hype about both after a very narrow win that could easily be used to question how high their ceiling is.
Not a good comparison : Mike Perez has never been and will play in the same league as Usyk or Breidis. I don't wanna talk about Abdusalamov, after this tragedy, but this unlucky fellow was an entertaining plodder (Spillzka level at best). Perez's hype started back when he won these three bums on the same night at a time when people were desperate to find new contenders at HW. He never lived up to these expectations.
Usyk won a gold medal, world amateur championships, WSB fights and is a unified champ at cruiserweight after only 12 fights an official pro. What had Perez ever done in his career to deserve to be compared to Usyk in any possible way ?
I'm sure there are plenty of fans who were as relatively underwhelmed as you and I. I agree that both guys found their level on Saturday night. And that's what I expected from the fight. Some decent, honest back and forth, resulting in a close contest. Good fighters (and certainly capable of beating a lot of the guys currently knocking around at heavyweight), but not special fighters.
Usyk is a world champion. He has already beaten some really good opposition (Glowacki/Huck). Perez was a fringe contender at the time he beat Mago, he had never beaten anyone of notice. No comparing the two, Usyk has already been established as number one at CW. I hope he makes the jump to HW, but he will have a hard time becoming a Heavyweight champion.
