Usyk is the GOAT cruiser

We've already seen some top heavies get beaten at cruiserweight in recent years. Eddie Chambers was basically schooled by a B level cruiserweight in Mchunu who went on to get knocked out by a B+ level CW in Makabu, and lost several times since then. This wasn't a faded Chambers, but one at the peak of his form, albeit coming off a loss to Wlad. Mchunu just picked him apart in an embarrassingly one-sided performance.

Perez had a tough and reasonably competitive fight with Briedis which he lost on the cards, which to my mind puts Briedis alongside the likes of prime Takam and Jennings at least, maybe a cut above them. Briedis also knocked Manuel Charr unconscious, showing not only world class power but the ability to dispatch a tough, if limited HW in the top twenty or thereabouts.

Marco Huck also moved up and gave a prime Povetkin everything he could handle in a fight that could have gone either way. Then there's Adamek, Cunningham, Haye etc, who've all had varying levels of success at heavy.

There's a pretty strong correlation that success at CW equals a reasonably comparable level of success at HW.

 

Well, we already know this. See my post about Mike Perez. Ruiz is little more than an overweight cruiser himself, and I'd put good money on the fact that if he ever managed to get down to the 200 lbs limit he'd be nothing special whatsoever.

 

for me, that doesnt help usyks argument much, povetkins list of cancelled fights contains more talent that fighters he actually fought, and charr isnt even duhaupas level. as ive said before, ive only seen one of usyks fights, and i did not see his skills as all that impressive. hes very good, but not p4p top 3 good. i could be wrong about how good he really is, but it would be the first time im that wrong about a fighters skills. if he is that good, he should have little trouble getting to one of the top 3 at hw, as the field is full of incomplete fat men with long teeth.

 

Comparing a how a guy performed at heavy, to how he performed at cruiser after cutting significant weight, is fairly useless.

 

Why are Ward and Kovalev "known quantities", but Usyk and other top cruisers aren't? Kovalev never fought outside LHW to my knowledge and Ward only fought at SMW and LHW, which is a significantly slimmer margin in weight class than Cruiserweight and Heavyweight.

 

Chambers weighed 210 at heavy. He was hardly cutting a ton of weight.

 

Charr had a highly competitive fight with Duhaupas which he was unlucky to lose on the cards. He's very much on the same level.

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Usyk's skills are a bit deceptive. He didn't blow me away either when I first saw him, and it took me a while to understand why he's so good. It basically rests in his ability to read a fighter's style and adapt himself to it as the fight goes on. He's not super fast or flashy or anything that obvious, but he's an absolutely world-class talent, have no doubt about that.

 

because wards skill level is well established, hes an A level fighter, and kova running him that close speaks to his level as well. an A level fighter at cruiser should be able to beat all those lighter than him and a kova and ward should be able to overcome a B level cruiser.
to gauge the level of talent in a pool, you need to compare it against the best from another pool, thats why jumping divisions means so much, because you are beating the best from a completely different pool, with its own level of overall talent, which is less likely to also be full of average talent.

 

Which Usyk fight did you see by the way? Whichever it was, I'd recommend just sitting down and watching all you can of him with an unbiased and open eye. That'll answer your questions better than any number of arguments from posters on here.

 

Why is Ward an A level fighter and Usyk isn't? Who did he prove that against besides other SMWs and LHWs?

Just to clarify, I don't dispute that Ward is an A level fighter, but I'm trying to understand why you can see that but aren't prepared to afford that same evaluation to Usyk and other top cruisers, several of whom have had success at other weight divisions.

 

Iam not saying that it’s the best division now or historically. Put it like this most boxers who become world champions get into the sport at a relatively young age, of these let’s say 12 to 13 years old, (more often than not they are younger.). They might be a few indications of talent and potential, but there’s probably very few with indications of the potential to fill out into a heavyweight. Yet that is the dream of many of them, id argue that very few set out with the dream to be a cruiser weight world champion. I must add that I have and always will held the middleweight division as the marquee division within the sport, for many reasons one I’d say the weight often delivers fighters with the optimum weight/power/stamina and possibly offers the largest pool of potential boxers/champions as it’s in my opinion the closest weight to the everyday man weight.

 

because he beat others in a tournament, who were also familiar quantities, and then beat the B fighters in the division above. a B level smw should not be beating the best at lhw. so either 175 is weak, or ward is just far above the ordinary. wards resume suggest its because hes that good.

 

Any potential hall of famers or long term champions amongst the 16 opponents on Usyk record? Must be quite a few if beating them has already cemented his status as the divisions greatest ever?

 

and a p4p top 5. how good are these guys at cruiser? im not asking to be condescending, im actually unfamiliar with the proven quality at that weight. why does beating them make you a p4p? canelo proved himself against ggg, a top p4p fighter, loma, mikey and crawford are multiple division champs. usyk has beat a bunch of guys who have never done anything to separate themselves from the pack, what makes them the tough test?

 

I'd argue the same for Usyk. He beat a known quantity in Marco Huck (comparable to, say, Abraham), an undefeated and highly ranked opponent in Briedis (comparable to maybe someone like Kessler, before Joe got to him), and another undefeated and highly ranked fighter in Gassiev.

He also beat Glowacki who was undefeated at the time and coming off a win over Huck, and Mchunu, who had previously schooled Eddie Chambers coming down from heavy.

Prior to that he'd had masses of success at amateur level and beaten many top heavyweights like Joe Joyce (now making waves at HW), Mihai Nistor (who knocked out Anthony Joshua in the ams) and Mago Medzhidov (beat Joshua, Cammarelle, Savon and Dychko).

I'd suggest that all proves he's pretty good as well. Why would you argue otherwise?