Who is the P4p #1 in your opinion?

Oleksandr Usyk.

 

Nonsense - and it's right there in the damn term - pound for pound. Smh.

The whole reason we have weight categories is because being heavier is an advantage.

To perform well despite being disadvantaged is a strong indicator of superiority.

To dominate despite being massively disadvantaged is a very strong indicator of the P4P superiority of a particular fighter - and that's where Usyk comes in.

(The inverse is true - weight bullies, who always have an inbuilt advantage are flashing a neon sign that their performances aren't as impressive as they superficially appear).

 

Yeah and P4P is a rating of if weight wasn't a factor, which is why it's silly to be using weight in the calculus in a rating that by definition is designed to take weight out of the equation.

Yeah and guess what, Heavyweight is an unlimited weight class. At Heavyweight, additional weight isn't the advantage that it is at lower weights. In fact, it's often a detriment, as it was for Usyk Fury. Fury gassed, tired, largely because he was carrying more weight, which allowed Usyk to take advantage down the stretch.

He performed well but he still struggled for about half the match.

"Dominate"? It was a split decision, and a fight that Usyk was clearly losing after 6 rounds.

There's no such thing as a "Heavyweight" weight bully. You're trying to apply standards of lower weight classes to Heavyweight, which is absurd.

 

Usyk by a fair amount. His resume and legacy is perfect, against all odds.

 

Wow, this isn't a take I expected to see...

Okay, I'll make it really simple.

To make weight not a factor, you have to equalise out by weight.

To do that, you have to assess a fighters ability to perform - and if they're able to fight with handicaps (like being outweighed by 20 or 30 lbs) and still win, that counts for a hell of a lot...
Because, newsflash, if they weren't disadvantaged, they'd dominate like crazy in such fights.

Nonsense - the reason heavyweight is unlimited is because there aren't enough fighters to make for more divisions.

This has to do with simple human biology - the bellcurve of height and weight means that the very biggest men make up a far smaller percentage of the population than those that cluster around the mean sizes in various societies around the world... This is why more average size fighters have only a few lbs between divisions.

It's also broadly speaking nonsense that it's a detriment - with poor conditioning and/or older age, sheer size punishes endurance more... But that doesn't mean it's a detriment across the board - for prime fighters, it's a massive advantage to be bigger and naturally heavier.

As far as Joshua, the most proven guy at heavy goes? Yes.

As far as Fury goes? Take biased cards and referee protection out of it, and yes, clearly.

There's a good reason the biggest heavies don't feature in P4P lists - it's not weight bullying in the sense that dehydrating for advantage at lower weights is, but it's still holding an advantage that counts against any P4P claim.

 

Based on resume... Usyk.

Based on the eye test... Usyk.

Based on H2H ability... Usyk.

I love Inoue though.

 

Don't bother, this is the same guy who claims losing to Bivol shouldn't be counted against Canelo because, "daring to be great against the best Champion at higher weights shouldn't be punished."

 

Usyk. And after he beats Fury again he will further pull away from the #’s 2 and 3 guys.

 

That's the great irony

If he rubbed those two or three cells of grey matter together he'd see that losing to someone naturally bigger, naturally heavier and naturally longer counts less against his hero/crush... Bivol was approx. 10lbs heavier on fight night and that counts for quite a lot.

I don't necessarily disagree that it doesn't count less against Canelo than losing to someone his own size would... But I can actually be consistent in explaining why

 

What he's done since the Bivol fight pretty much validates my argument. You have to evaluate fighters on their capabilities, their strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, we have fans wanting to give Usyk more credit for being outweighed by 20-30 lbs at Heavyweight while fans wanted to punish Canelo for moving up a weight class and losing to Bivol.

In Usyk's case, it wasn't apparent that his performance was affected by increasing his own weight to fight at HW, while in Canelo's case it was very apparant that putting on weight to move up to LHW affected his performance. So again, it comes down to how you perform, and it was very apparent to me, not just vs Bivol but also vs Kovalev, that Canelo at LHW simply isn't the same fighter he is at SMW.

P4P for Canelo was knowing the fighter he was and still is at SMW, vs his effectiveness at LHW. Knowing that he's already moved up multiple weight classes just to get to SMW. And knowing that he's still the same fighter at SMW, even after what happened vs Bivol. Canelo moved up from Light Middle to Middle to SMW, then to LHW. While Usyk moved up from Cruiser to Heavyweight. That's moving up 3 weight classes vs moving up 1 weight class. Then there's how much opponents outweigh Usyk, at Heavyweight, which is a different argument.

P4P for Usyk is knowing that putting on more weight and fighting at HW hasn't seemed to affect his performance, he's arguably as good or maybe even better at HW than he was at Cruiser. Usyk is a small Heavyweight which gives him advantages vs Heavyweights, he has better stamina, better movement, etc. Bivol is a small Light Heavyweight, which gives him advantages vs bigger fighters or fighters who put on weight to make LHW. And the same could be said about why Jermell Charlo was so sluggish after moving up to SMW, which is a vlaid argument. But when talking about P4P, I'm less concerned about how your opponent performs, for me it's about how the fighters being rated perform.

So on the one hand, you could say well here I am talking about weight when I just said P4P isn't about weight. And to that I would say, again, no, it's about how you perform. If the weight you are carrying causes you to perform poorly, and you know that the fighter is better at the lower weight, then knowing that and judging him for the fighter he is at the lower weight is different.

I said Canelo shouldn't be punished for the Bivol loss because it was very apparent that he was slower and more prone to gassing at LHW than SMW. It's pretty clear to everyone that he's a far better fighter at SMW, and since the Bivol loss, this reality has been validated, as we've seen Canelo dominate quality fighters one after the other at SMW. If I was wrong about what I said about Canelo still being P4P #1 following the Bivol loss, which you seem to be suggesting, then why hasn't Canelo struggled in his 4 fights since returning to SMW? So you act like what I said there was so crazy, but yet his performances since the Bivol loss have only validated what I said.

Remember, it's not about weight, it's about how you perform. Canelo's performance vs Bivol was affected by the weight he put on, so knowing that, i was willing to take that into consideration, and taking into consideration that he was still competitive against Bivol, despite the fact that this is a minority view. But you know, a lot of people have been predicting Canelo's demise since losing to Bivol, and so far, it hasn't happened. I could have dropped him from P4P #1 at that time judging him on the LHW version of him, but I expected that when he returned to SMW he would go back to his usual dominate self. So I kept him P4P #1 for that reason, and was proven right by how he's dominated after that.

But that doesn't mean you can't hold the Bivol loss against him, many do and it has taken him out of P4P #1. But at the same time, we now have fans using Usyk fighting at a supposed weight disadvantage vs larger Heavyweights as a way to say that this supports that he's P4P #1. I'm just pointing out that, it's different than Canelo putting on weight to fight at LHW, against a fighter with great stamina and a high work rate, than Usyk fighting Fury who gassed himself down the stretch, largely because he was carrying more weight, a factor that Usyk fans are trying to claim as a disadvantage for Usyk.

I'm saying, carrying extra weight is not often something that makes it easier for you to perform or win, and in some cases, especially when you're carrying more weight than you should be carrying, it's actually a detriment.

 

See my response to DynamicMoves above and see how much of that you agree with. There is some common ground here, with you arguging that Usyk deserves more credit for being outweighed vs me not wanting to punish Canelo for moving up and losing to Bviol, but there are some important distinctions that I highlighted in that post. And I think it really comes down to who's weight are we factoring in here, the weight of the fighter we are rating and how that affects his performance, or the weight of the opponent. And by the way, I do think this is an important discussion and I appreciate your input here.

 

Both.

You can look at whether a particular weight suits a given fighter.

You can look at the disparity in weight between a fighter and a particular opponent.

You can look at whether that particular weight suits the opponent in question.

It's all part of it.

 

But we're rating the fighter in a P4P sense (Canelo and Usyk) not his opponents. You're using the additional weight of who Usyk fought, which in Fury's case arguably led to his downfall, whereas I was using the weight of Canelo and how that affected him, slowing him down, making him more sluggish, knowing that he's a better fighter at SMW. And also knowing that who he was fighting (Bivol) had great stamina, high work rate, didn't gas, unlike Fury who did, largely because of the added weight he was carrying, and the fact that he wasn't in the kind of physical condition Bivol was in.

 

You can't separate the two in a P4P sense.

There is no evidence that weight contributed to Fury's downfall.

Yes, he tired, but he was worked to the body and up against an unusually skilled fighter with an A1 gas tank... Fury was at a good weight, for Fury and in as good condition as he'd been in since Wlad.

Fury is naturally bigger and heavier - that's an advantage... Blowing up in weight beyond where you're effective isn't necessarily, but that's not the case here.

There's two parts to this, and you're missing one of them.

Yes, Canelo was a bit beyond his better weights.

But also because Bivol is naturally bigger and at peak effectiveness being that size - Bivol was 10lbs heavier in the ring... That's an advantage to Bivol.


This is the reason Usyk is clearly P4P #1 - because at a reasonable weight for himself, he's clearly beating guys who are at their ideal weight 20lbs+ heavier than him... They're naturally bigger, naturally heavier and despite all the advantages of size and weight, Usyk won clearly despite biased refereeing and judging.

 

Usyk, the Canelo.