Which of these does Usyk beat

What you need to remember though is that Joshua hasn't beaten a top 10 Heavyweight since 2019 which was an overly cautious performance vs Ruiz.

Yes i'll admit Joshua has looked better recently but that's because his opposition hasn't been that strong which also has to be taken into account. He laboured to a 12 round decision win over Franklin, 40 year old Helenius who had recently been stopped in 1 round by Wilder who had 1 weeks notice, Wallin who's not a top 10 Heavyweight, and finally Ngannou who is an MMA fighter.

Again we need to see Joshua putting in these kind of performances against the likes of Zhang, Parker, Hrgovic, Kabayel, etc to see where Joshua is really at.

I still wouldn't favour Joshua against Tyson in 1996 Holyfield had much better durability and fought a smart fight vs Tyson nullifying Tyson's offence on the inside. I don't see Joshua being able to replicate that performance if an obese Ruiz can catch Joshua then Tyson certainly can. And if Joshua was afraid to engage against an even fatter version of Ruiz in their rematch can you imagine Tyson in there ?

 

i would not favour Joshua over 96 Tyson because Tyson is a bad style match up for him. But Joshua would beat a lot more guys than 96 Tyson could.

And yes, Joshua has fought softer guys since losing to Usyk. But then again it doesn't change the fact that he was in his physical prime when Usyk beat him.

 

Would he though ? who would you favour Joshua to beat that a 96 version of Tyson couldn't beat ?

I don't think Joshua was mentally 100 percent vs Usyk though after the Ruiz loss he seemed to be more cautious and didn't know what style to incorporate. As i said i'm not totally convinced that Joshua is back to his very best because his opposition don't really tell us much honestly, we need to see Joshua in with a top 10 Heavyweight to really assess how good he actually is now.

 

Quite a few guys:

Tyson Fury for a start.

Ray Mercer for another

I think the Ruiz thing is overstated. Joshua couldn't deal with Usyk's movement, workrate and southpaw stance. There is no pre Ruiz version of Joshua that is beating Usyk. If Joshua tried walking through him, he would risk running into huge punches. Joshua's confidence in the second fight after winning round 9 was sky high. Turns out Usyk has another gear that he didn't even bother using until round 10 of the second fight.

 

I take your point about a "wider pool", but I'm not convinced that's the case. I don't see the evidence for that really.

 

I'm not so sure Joshua could beat the version of Mercer who fought Lewis and i would still make a 96 version of Tyson a favourite over Mercer. He doesn't possess Holyfield's boxing IQ or the ability to nullify Tyson's offence on the inside, Mercer eats punches and you can't just stand there and trade punches with Tyson with little to no defence.

Fury i agree should be a favourite over the 96 version of Tyson but again Fury hasn't fought many smaller skillful Heavyweights. The only two notable smaller skillful Heavyweight's he's fought is Cunningham who dropped him, and of course Usyk who nigh on knocked him out in the 9th round. Fury has been hurt and dropped numerous times so i'm not sure how he would hold up if he gets cracked on the chin by Tyson.

I don't think any version of Joshua beats Usyk either i wasn't trying to insinuate so apologies if it came across that way. I was just saying Joshua after the Ruiz fight did seem to be in between styles and lacked a bit of confidence. Now he seems to have found his old aggressive approach again but as i said he's only shown that against lesser opposition, the jury's still out Joshua IMO he needs to have an impressive showing against a top 10 Heavyweight.

 

Fair enough. I largely agree to be fair. With Mercer, he was so frickin durable, i think he will manage to wear Tyson out. Mercer took absolute sledgehammers from Morrison and Lewis and those two have comparable power to Tyson. Tyson has faster hands, sure, but still. I think Mercer weathers an early storm despite his mediocre defense and later takes over once Tyson runs out of energy. Prime Tyson obviously beats him.

Yes Mike could beat Fury. Prime Mike would beat Fury and i wouldn't count out even 96 version. But if Fury survives 5-6 rounds, i don't see Mike rallying back.

Good discussion. I think we agree more than we disagree.

 

Likewise buddy nice to share some thoughts with you.

 

I'm seeing it this way.

I don't think Joshua beats a '96 Mercer. He's never fought anyone that tough, period. His ledger overall isn't impressive and so I'm struggling to see how one might confidently speculate that Joshua handles an array of top-level heavyweight talent.

Whatever one thinks of mid-90s Tyson, he still carried the class of an elite with him and I don't think anyone who wasn't named Evander Holyfield or Lennox Lewis was going to beat him - and those two were levels above Joshua and his opposition.

On reflection, Holyfield's victory over Tyson isn't just better than Usyk's over Joshua - it's much better.

 

Who cares what General Board thinks though lol. Literally home to neo-nazi's and flat earthers. I don't think any large contingent of people actually worth listening to (for this website, most of whom are on this board) overrates Usyk. It's being discussed like it's an epidemic and not regular dummies being regular dummies.

 

Parker is tough as nails. Beat arguably the hardest hitting southpaw in history. Beat another top puncher in Wilder. Of course you have people saying that Zhang is 41 but he is a late bloomer coming off the best wins of his career. While Parker may not be as durable as Mercer, he isn't far behind. Joshua's win over Parker is very impressive.

I don't want to overrate the post prison Tyson. Truth is he looked very impressive vs a bunch of cans. His best win in 96 was vs Bruno who was fighting with one eye and arguably should not even have been allowed to fight.

Is 96 Tyson beating 96 David Tua? Yes prime Tyson beats Tua. But unless Mike gets him out of there in a few rounds (unlikely), David is going to wear him down (the 96 version of Tyson). Remember Tua ko'd Ruiz in 96 so he had essentially arrived. Just because Tua wasn't ranked super high at this time doesn't mean he doesn't beat 96 Tyson.

I am not sure if Tyson beats Ray Mercer in 96. Again, unless he gets him out of their fast, Mercer will wear him down. Tyson never scored a ko past the 5th round in his comeback. Never showed he could outbox and outwork a skilled opponent over 12 rounds the way that young Tyson did vs Tony Tucker.

I am a big Tyson fan but if you look at his post prison record, its very very poor. Speculating that he could beat a lot of top heavies is over the top IMO. If he was so capable, his people would have matched him vs someone with a pulse. The only reason why Holyfield was picked was because they thought he was washed up.

IMO both Tua and Mercer would out tough this Tyson. Yes, in 1996. Not sure about Bowe since he was a headcase and was himself coming to an end. I would actually give this Tyson a solid shot vs Lewis but you have to favour Lewis. And Holyfield obviously.

Tyson did nothing post prison to rank him as some sort of a great win.

 

Its interesting that post prison Tyson was never matched vs anyone who we would regard as a major heavy between 96-2003 except Lewis and Holyfield. And perhaps a headcase in Golota.

Not Tua, not Mercer, not Ibeabuchi, not Byrd, not Vitali, not Sanders, not Rahman, no one really. At least 1-2 of these fights could have been made at some point but his handlers knew this was a faded fighter.

 

I think Parker has been rejuvenated and is showing good form of late but, I'm sorry, no version of '90s Mercer gets caved in by Joyce - and certainly not the Mercer of '95/'96.

The same could be said of Joshua, though. Who has he beaten since Ruiz?

Why not? What gives you the impression that Tua performs on the level of a '96 Holyfield?

So because he didn't demonstrated it in the timeframe being discussed, he couldn't have done so?

It's fair enough to hold that as an opinion, I suppose. But it is also as speculative as the view of Joshua being effective against a wider pool of opposition.

Speculating that '96 Tyson could beat a lot of top heavies is no more over the top than presuming the same for Joshua. At least Tyson, overall, has more credibility upon which to base such a speculation.

But Tyson doesn't need to have done so in order to be considered a better win for Holyfield in '96 than Joshua was for Usyk in 2020.

 

Gun to my head, I think he could beat Frazier and Liston, but I wouldn't bet a penny and I think he'd struggle with both of them win or lose. Wladmir is a tricky matchup, but I might slightly favor Usyk.

Holmes is 50/50.

He loses to the rest.

 

Man_Machine and overrating past fighters while underrating current fighters, name a more iconic combo.