Who did Usyk beat to be considered so great?

Usyk on points, wide.

Lebedev was awesome, but he didn't really like movers and Usyk wasn't one to unnecessarily get involved in tear ups. I reckon he'd fight like he did in the Glowacki fight; by moving, working a jab early but then stalking late, sitting down on his shots more and upping his workrate, gradually. I think Lebedev would've been flabbergasted.

 

When you decide that nobody in this era is any good, because Evan Fields moved up to HW to get brain damage with his amazing skills, then of course it's impossible to beat anybody any good and you have to be overrated. Pretty convenient.

 

None of those guys pose any problems for him. A prime Lebedev is about the only one who might give him something to think about, but Lebedev was way past prime when Usyk came on the scene.

 

Yeah, it's a cliche but you can only fight who's available to you, and Usyk has done all that and dominated the division thoroughly. As for how strong you think the division is historically that's impossible to prove and comes down to bias and subjective feeling. It's rare that one era is categorically much worse than another era however, simply due to the fact that when you have enough humans competing for resources the cream are always going to rise to the top. The demographics and methods for achieving success may change, but the level of determination, intelligence and development of skills required to conquer your competition does not.

Saying who has Usyk fought when he's cleared out an entire division, many of whose competitors have been either successful LHWs or had success at HW, is a poor line of debate that appeals to nostalgia and nationalistic bias more often than not.