Usyk refused the Parker fight,gave the Belt up rather than fight Wardley and the Rico fight tonight was all about seeing what he had left,I’d be very surprised if he fights Kabayel next as already ordered too !
Ali was knocked down and nearly out against Cooper, KD'd by Banks even. Not a good fighter. And some say that's the best we've ever had at heavyweight. It's not a good division. Kickboxing is better than boxing. It combines the elegance and grace of boxing...with kicking. Norm Macdonald said that. And he knew sports. His betting record proved that.
Wouldn't say exposed, kickboxers just have an awkward style of boxing, see Marco Huck's entire boxing career. It's just different timing and closer to MMA than boxing. He did time Rico at the end, but overall Oleksandr looked like a fat dad today who had an unexpected fight with his next door neighbor.
It is what it is at this point. Usyk has done his best to navigate the division how he wanted to. It has been obvious for some time: kept downgrading his first heavyweight opponent, priced himself out of fighting Joyce, stalled out Hrgovic, ducked Parker, ducked Wardley, stalled Kabayel no end. Instead, he kept fighting the same guys instead of getting looks at different heavyweights styles. Me whenever I pointed out all this:
He’s B level historically in the top 20 maybe but nowhere near the top 10. Come on ladies and gentlemen, it’s time. Put him where he belongs.
Kabayel I'll give you, dude needs to get his shot ASAP. Joyce, Hrgovic, Wardley have all been beaten by either himself or DuBois. Parker is a good fighter, but I don't see any issues for Usyk with him at all.
He's good. It is rare in any era that a cruiserweight wins a world title at heavyweight. But he has also benefitted from the lack of swarmers at heavyweight.
1) Joyce was beaten by Zhang, and Hrgovic did not lose clean, neither Usyk or Dubois beat Parker either. 2) styles make fights is my point really Stalling out contenders until they take an L is not the way a great champion should go about things
Back in my day we used take these people out back and beat them with a rubber hose. Now everyone says I can't do that and that "they're just kids."
Fair enough, but he's hardly the first champ to ever do so. I meant the win over Joyce in the WBSS. But name me a champ who fought everybody, even Joe Louis had the bum of the month club. It's boxing.
You are correct to an extent. I agree a champion cant realistically fight everyone, but to repeatedly not schedule any of them when there were opportunities is something different We will have to agree to disagree on Joyce: I will always maintain that WBSS is not the same as 10~12 rounds of pro boxing. The thing with trying to make that comparison to Louis (outside of his record over a long reign) is that you have to fight every month to have a bum of the month club.
I just don't think that Joyce could have done anything differently to Usyk in the pro ranks. And yeah, no modern heavyweight will fight every month obviously. Different times.
given his performance for the rest of the fight he deserved a chance to recuperate, especially as was still standing and the ref waved it off after the bell. A win is a win I guess, but it's tainted by poor refereeing.