Usyk: late to HW but why?

Usyk is clearly the greatest heavyweight who has ever lived. You know because he beat old Chazz Witherspoon, old Derek Chisora, Daniel Dubois a guy that everyone say's suck and then he beat a mentally damaged Anthony Joshua after Andy Ruiz knocked him out first.

 

But then you realize he isn't lol. Nobody considered Holyfield small and he fought in a era where there guys like Mike White 6'10 300 pounds, Stanley Wright 6'10 280 pounds, Lance Whitaker 6'8 260 plus pounds, Henry Akinwande 6'7 240 plus, Michael Grant 6'7 250 plus, Jorge Luis Gonzales 6'7 250 pounds plus, Jameell McCline 6'6 260 pounds plus. Hell even guys like Vitali Klitschko and Nicholai Valuev turned pro in the 1990's. Now all of the sudden the little kids act like if you are 6'5 plus you are a giant and nobody can beat you.

You want more funny? Since 2010 Alexander Povektin a 6'1 inch guy, David Haye a 6'2 200 pound guy, Ruslan Chagaev a 6'0 tall guy, Andy Ruiz a 5'11 inch guy, Bermaine Stivern a 6'1 inch guy, Joseph Parker a 6'2 1/2/ 6'3 inch guy and Usyk a 6'2 inch guy became champion. The thing is that current heavyweights are fatter. But they aren't bigger than they were for the last 50 yeras since the 1970's. Hell I could name 100 plus boxers from the 1970's who were 6'5 to 6'9

 

This is a very insightful. Now be good and tell us, what your main account name is/was, and why you are on your 50th. alt account, cause his main was banned?

 

"This opinion was expressed by several Ukrainian boxing trainers who knew him directly. For example, here's what the trainer of the Olympic team said right before he turned pro"

Could you provide links to these quotes, particularly the one you quoted?

The trainer was significantly exaggerating:

"he won because his weight was 207-209 lbs. The guys in the pro league weigh around 264 lbs. What if there's a 44-66 lbs difference?"

Usyk weighed 207-213 in the 2013 WSB iirc but Wlad wasn't close to 264, always weighing between 238-249 starting just prior to his 24th birthday. So even assuming that Usyk didn't bulk up at heavyweight (which he of course did, to 221 lbs) we'd be talking about a 25-42 lbs difference against the champion, not "44-66". And likely 25-28 lbs (if not 17-20) as Wlad fought Byrd 1 and Ibragimov weighing 238. Even Fury (who wasn't regarded by most as being on Wlad's or even Haye's level in 2013) was in the high 240's when he looked his best at the time. So the Ukrainian coach is massively exaggerating the weight difference. Why? It could be sloppiness, or could be because he didn't want the relatively obscure Usyk to fight Ukrainian hero and global superstar Wlad.

"He looked pretty good even in the heavyweight division. In three rounds of three minutes, he will win due to his speed, but"

Again it's exaggeration. The WSB fights were five rounders (huge difference from three) and Usyk dominated all of them besides the much shorter Nistor (who Usyk came on strong against late) and the pseudo low blow from Majidov, who he otherwise dominated. Five rounders are fought at a very high pace so if you consistently win easily with stamina to spare over five then that says a lot about your ability handle more rounds. Usyk was even able to stop massive SHW's Modugno and Brechlin in 2-3 with 12 oz gloves, who took fighters like Joyce, Hrgovic, Makhmudov and Joshua much deeper into the rounds or in 3/4 cases went the distance.

"Besides, according to Usyk's promoter"

The Ukrainian boxing fraternity and K2 Promotions in particular had incentives to prevent Usyk from fighting Wlad and Wlad may well have not wanted it either.

"Honestly, I don't see why this question is so important"

I don't know how many threads on the forum are "important" but it can be interesting and informative to speculate and debate. The 4 year gap between winning Olympic gold at 25 and his world title debut vs Glowacki at 29 invites speculation, as does the 7 year gap between winning Olympic gold and his proper heavyweight debut in 2019, when he'd been fighting at amateur SHW since 2012. I think Usyk's promotional company and Wlad's status as champion had a lot to do with it.

 

I can send the link but won't be able to help you with the translation: http://www.kianews.com.ua/news/cevastopolskii-bronepoezd-stanet-geroem-filma-7733 , I used Chat GPT to translate the part that I sent. This article was written before he turned pro and touches upon him not getting signed by Top Rank as they weren't very interested in promoting a cruiserweight fighter, while the article doubts Usyk would be able to deliver at HW.

By the way, there you will also find quotes by other people saying similar things, including his first trainer.

You can disagree with these people all you want. But my argument was that, at the time, the common opinion, including people surrounding Usyk, was that he was too small for heavyweight. This correlates with my subjective memory, as I was following boxing pretty closely at that time an, even despite his successes in WSB, it felt he was undersized for heavyweight pro-boxing.

 

He dominated them over five rounds, or whatever the limit was in the WSB. Not over ten and twelve. What if he went and fought Joyce in the pros and was dominating him like he did at WSB for the first half of the fight then gasses at the halfway point because he's been using too much energy up hitting and moving and Joyce comes on strong and knocks him out? No second chances in the pros. Not for men like him. Fighting at cruiserweight let him fight other big punching big men and ease into his pro style which uses less hitting and moving. Why do you question him for fighting there anyway? Who's he going to fight at heavy in his first twenty fights that's any good? At cruiserweight he was going in with the top guys like Glowaki by his tenth fight. At heavyweight he's probably still fighting useless lumps like Joey Daweko by his tenth fight.

 

Lol, you must be having a laugh. Usyk wasn't close to a household name in the UK after the Olympics. No one gives a toss about the gold medallist unless they're British like Joshua. People didn't even really care about Joe Joyce either. He didn't get the gold star treatment as a pro. The Bellew fight got numbers because Usyk was a world champion and Bellew was coming off wins against David Haye. People wanted to tune in to see if he could pull it off. Why do you reckon Usyk gets more exposure fighting at heavyweight? How much exposure does Jalalov or Dychko or Hrgovic get? Casuals don't know them either. You make some sound points but you also got a bit of a rose tinted idea of how these things work out. Usyk only became a big name after beating Joshua. And he got to fight Joshua because he was a unified champion at cruiserweight. Do you think Usyk would be some super megastar if he would have fought at heavyweight from the getgo? Nah, he would at best be in the same position he's in now, but he wouldn't have names like Briedis and Gassiev and Hunter and Huck on his resume but probably a load of filler. He doesn't have the knockout power to make a big splash at heavyweight. It's the punchers that get the exposure fighting there, not the slicksters that outpoint everyone. What's wrong with the decision he made? He's fighting for all the belts in a megafight after 21 fights. That's awesome. Nothing to criticise there.

I agree with your training camp point. But the way heavyweights fight is much more physical than at cruiserweight where they fight like honourable men and exchange punches instead of trying to wrestle you and lean their big sweaty titties on you because they can't infight. A little lean man like Usyk would get all beaten up every fight not because he wasn't any good but because those big idiots wouldn't be fighting fair. You take more damage to your joints and back fighting much bigger men every time than fighting men your own height and weight.

 

Obviously?

I dont know the reason of this thread, tbh. He spent his best years at CW because he is a CW. Captain obvious, I just don't understand the thread.

 

What the hell?

What's this? a troll thread to generate traffic?

 

Not only Ussyk. That's what everybody is doing nowadays. They make tons of money, and they dont want brain damage, I guess.

All of them, but canelo who fights nonstop. Let's critizise Canelo... because, why not? Whe should be worshiping him. Win or lose, with drama or not, at least he fights and he gives us tons of good fights, not like the other "once a year" queens.

 

Thanks for the link.

"You can disagree with these people all you want."

And you can unquestionably accept their justifications all you want. The Ukrainian boxing fraternity and K2 Promotions are not unbiased parties. If the heavyweight champion at the time hadn't been a Ukrainian national hero and global superstar I think they'd have been singing a very different tune about Usyk's prospects at heavyweight. Wlad-Usyk didn't serve their interests on multiple fronts, hence they preferred Usyk to either stay in the amateurs (which they talk about in the article) or go to cruiser for several years.

Ofc the general public didn't give him much chance at HW: Ibragimov, Haye and Povetkin had failed against Wlad and barring Holyfield no cruiser historically had any success against top SHW's. But those around him had a much better idea about his abilities, even if they were deliberately downplaying them in the article with quotes like this: “Sasha shouldn’t throw himself into the heavyweights, otherwise anyone will rip his head off.”

 

Although I don't agree with it, I can kind of understand your speculation regarding K2 promotions because there's some financial interest there. But stating that the whole "Ukrainian boxing fraternity" would deliberately downplay Usyk in comments to some local Crimean website in order to justify (in front of whom?) him not challenging Wlad makes it a very far-fetched conspiracy theory. These people had NO personal business in whether Usyk fights Wlad or not, so I don't understand which multiple fronts you are talking about.

This makes me think that for some creepy reason you just desperately want your theory to be true.

 

The vast majority of heavyweights for example who boxed more than 50 fights don't have brain damage. Be it Wlad Klitschko, Larry Holmes, Oliver McCall, George Foreman, Tony Tucker etc.

Most of these guys now get in the ring once a year because they fight once, win, and then sit back thinking they are going to get a big fight. Lol Andy Ruiz beat Joshua. Did nothing else with his career (Besides fight a old Luis Ortiz). Now sites around looking for a pay check. Then we have people like Usyk and Fury who are both "heavyweight champions" of the world and both get in the ring once per year.