Why Oleksandr Usyk Should Be P4P Number 1 Over Both Terence Crawford & Naoya Inoue.

I like your argument but still have Bud a whisker higher,

Just think his power makes him a more formidible force.
If Usyk stopped AJ 2x then I might him higher. Just my opinion these things matter.

If Usyk beat Wilder i'd put him slightly higher than Crawford
If Usyk beat Fury then he is the clear p4p no1 and Crawford would have to win at 160+ to catch up

 

1. "Stacked" and "Decimated" Yeah okay. Modern Cruiserweight has a 200 pound weight limit where everyone rehydrates heavier than the weight limit which is heavyweight, you're telling me it took Usyk 3 whole years to to fight without making weight? To put into comparison, it took Michael Spinks only 3 months to move from 175 to HW to defeat and dethrone the lineal HW champion in the world Larry Holmes twice. Took Bernard Hopkins 6 months to go from 160 to 175 to dethrone lineal champ Antonio Tarver. Took Roy Jones Jr 4 months to go from 175 to HW to take John Ruiz's title. What you said you completely made up in your mind, just admit that Usyk has been inactive, 1 fight per year, 1 top 10 ranked opponent in 5 years, how can anyone be p4p number 1 being as inactive as he has? At you trying to claim a shot Dereck Chisora is a good win though, stop it man.

2. The Ring automatically ranked Usyk number 1 because they thought Tyson Fury retired from the sport after his win over Dillian Whyte despite Fury having a fight 8 months later vs Chisora. They made the 2nd fight vs Joshua for the "ring" belt despite Fury holding that same belt a couple weeks prior. Tyson Fury is literally still the lineal HW champion, it's not like they can strip Usyk from the ring belt because it would just make them look stupid. Boxrec and ESPN still have Fury as number 1 and The Ring still would too if they didn't falsely strip Fury for saying he retired.

3. Bredis lost to an absolute nobody with 22 fights in Jai Opetaia, the guy wasn't even ranked in the top 10 when Bredis met up with him. Also Bredis is a 200 plus pound man, the man barely suffered any damage in his career, 37 is too old now? Joshua had already lost to Ruiz and clearly hasn't been the same caliber of fighter since, I'm not saying it's not a great win "it's the best 2 wins in Usyks resume" but only having those 2 wins in the last 5 years? How can a logical person rank him p4p number 1? Wait, are you really trying to combine Joshua's resume with Usyks to make Usyk seem better? It doesn't work that way, buddy. At a shot Huck, Gassiev legit hasn't done anything since losing to Usyk almost 6 years ago.

4. I'm not impressed by that resume, I'm surprised you are.

 

You can discredit anyones resume like that though?
Even a great one like Ali:
- got knocked down by light heavies like Henry Cooper
- got two lucky mob related wins vs Liston who gave up and had the most obvious dive in boxing history.
- beat Floyd Patterson who went life and death with Swedish sailors, had chronic back pain and was ko'd by Liston twice.
- had his best Performance vs Cleveland Willams who was gunned down prior and had barely recovered besides not being anything special to begin with.
- lost fight of the century vs Frazier after getting brutally knocked down.
- lost to Norton 3 times
- should have been dq'd vs Frazier and arguably lost that fight
- was ready to quit in fight in Manilla and got lucky Futch pulled Frazier out before he could quit.
- got lucky punch in vs a gassed, possibly drugged Foreman and ducked the rematch.
- lost vs Young
- got humiliated by a japanese kickboxer
- schooled by Holmes

Basically a 1/2 headhunter with a big mouth that got lucky a few times and had several questionable decisions go his way.
Then as a person he was lucky to be favourable seen cause of how Vietnam went, was a terrible friend to Frazier and Malcolm x, cheated on his wives a lot, dated and married a minor and got sucked into a cult for decades....

Obviously I dont think about Ali like this. He is amazing and the goat heavyweight for me with Joe Louis but my point is you discredit any boxer and him as a person if you want to. Its all bs and an unfair take

Usyk is an ATG,ultimate road warrior and woukd be undisputed in cruiser and heavyweight of Fury wouldnt be running scared.

 

It's not like Crawford has a better resume over the last 5 years. Spence and Porter, if you even rate Porter.

The Joshua wins are better than both.

I couldn't care who someone has as #1 between Inoue, Crawford or Usyk, they're all elite fighters and none are clearly above the other. They all look spectacular.

 

1) Never said it took him three years to adjust. He took one tune up fight against Chazz, then went on to beat Chisora (which was apparently enough for the Ring to rank him as #10 heavy in the world in the annual 2020 ranking) before fighting Joshua twice. What's completely made up is Usyk being somehow inactive for years. Same goes for the "1 top 10 ranked fighter in 10 years" criticism. The one guy was holding majority of the belts, and he fought him twice due to a contractual rematch clause. Furthermore: Usyk's team demanded him to be installed as a mandatory around the time of his heavyweight debut in 2019; Joshua was back then busy regaining his titles from Ruiz, facing IBF mandatory in Pulev, and negotiating with Fury. When Fury was dragged by Wilder into the third fight, WBO enforced the Usyk-Joshua fight (while the Ukrainian was negotiating Joe Joyce bout.) By all means, Usyk would probably fight for the titles far sooner if not for the fact that it was a turbulent time for the division. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

As for the weight: Usyk was ready and fighting at 220lbs against Witherspoon. I agree with you as far as the fact that making weight should not be a problem, even on shorter notice. I stand by the fact that there is absolutely nothing wrong with testing and adjusting to the weight he never fought at while aiming to take on the likes of Joshua and Fury in the future. Posting extreme, or at the very least extremely impressive and special, examples as if its a norm is not a way to discredit Usyk not going for the titles in his first heavyweight bout. Out of the more relevant fighters you mentioned (moving to heavyweight where theere is no upper limit and no need to make weight or dehydrate by the opposing side):

a) Roy Jones Jr. (bless him, one of my favorites) PED his way to a fight against a strap holder and one of the weakest to hold the belt to boot, with a referee preventing the Quiet Man from ceaseless mauling and clinching tactics (rightfully so; ugly, illegal style.) He never plannned to defend or fight real heavies, and according to many the move up and drop in weight took a lot out of him. Usyk was going for the colossal Fury right after Joshua, so approaching the new division more strategically was more sensible, and even with all the scrutiny about his opponents at 200+, he still enforced his mandatory status almost immediately.

b) Micheal Spinks was the real deal. Yeah. There is a reason he rivals the likes of Charles and Tunney at light-heavyweight. Putting on 4,500 callories diet, weightlifting, cutting roadwork in favor of sprints, and working tirelessly to challenge Holmes. There is a reason it's one of the sacred events of the boxing history (Holmes trying to tie the Marciano record; Spinks trying to replicate a history-making feat most thought impossible.) Regardless, I disagree with your approach of entirely ignoring contest for majority of the Usyk's opponents(Gassiev did nothing after losing to Usyk, except after being halted by numerous injuries, he went on to knock heavies like kids, and is in talks to fight Otto Wallin; Chisora was shot, but still was coming off of wins against Takam, Price, Szpilka, only losing the Whyte rematch while ahead on the cards despite point deductions, and going on to arguably win against Parker in his next fight post-Usyk) when on the other hand there is no mention of circumstances regarding John Ruiz's actual standing and importance, or the Holmes fights being I) controversial and scored either way by fans, especially the rematch, and II) Holmes being old, having been slowing down since the Witherspoon fight, and going on to retire after the rematch, only coming back for what was essentially a second, "Old-Man" career. Another counterargument would be that Micheal never intended to really stay at the weight, taking the Cooney cash-fight, and picking up the retirement check against Tyson while making sure he ain't losing much health. Usyk entered the division intending to take on all the belt holders.

Bottom line is, more light-heavyweight champions and later cruisers burned at the heavyweight, rather than conquering it while just moving up like Tunney, Spinks, or Holyfield did (very special fighters, the first two on account on moving from LHW to take on the man, the latter on account of long and successfull career there.) By the time Bob Foster challenged Frazier, the likes of Charles and the Fighting Marine were fading away, with the opinion that no light-heavy can move up and beat the glamorous division belt holder being far more common.


2) Fair point. Couldn't recall how Usyk moved up above Fury. With him facing his mandatory, while Fury's recent fights are soon going to be Chisora III and Ngannou it would be absolutely justified to move him up anyway. After all since 2018, bar Povetkin's knockout victim and a drug cheat Whyte, he only beat one top fighter in Wilder (twice, but hey, if we can ignore rematch clauses in Usyk's case, let's keep it fair) and maybe 10-1 underdog Wallin who might have been sneaking into the top 15 of some rankings. Right?

3) Already posted my take on the fight and Briedis' career. Nothing more to add, as I feel nothing new was addressed. Same goes for my take on how good of a win Chisora, Gassiev, and others were at the time.

No resume were combined. Not really. Only brought them up because in context of some posts Joshua was treated as if Usyk beat Frank Bruno twice.

 

Bud has had 0 close fights in his entire career. He's beaten a fellow P4P ranked fighter (that wasnt 40 years old in Klitschko) in Spence and had a great win over Porter who lost before but was never flatlined by a Ruiz level fighter.

Usyk is also very good and in the conversation but both Bud and Inoue have been more convincing.

 

Because they were either brain damaged or shot.. the rest were ****. He also rehydrates to about four divisions above what he's actually weighing in at. Since when do Inoue, Loma, Bivol, Usyk etc do that... even Canelo.. yes he did it when he was younger but Crawford has been doing it his whole career .. It's a grift.. the Americans are notorious for it.. Unfortunately it's legal , but it's not what I would class as p4p..

 

When has Usyk ever fought someone with metal plates in their skull or someone with dentures & jaw implants ... & the inactivity of TCs opposition is atrocious .. after Khan had been flattened by Canelo in 2016 he had only fought twice up until facing Crawford in 2019.. 2 fights FFS.. Spence had fought once in nearly 3 years.. Porter? ONE bum fight in two years.. Brook? ONE bum fight in 2 years... it's a fkin joke... there's no way you can compare this guy to the likes of Hearns, Duran, Floyd or Pacquiao.. for some reason Crawford is the flavor of the minute but when you dig down into the substance of his resume it's diabolical to be honest..

 

Don't get me wrong - Usyk is a special fighter. It's a big accomplishment to go from undisputed CW champ to holding 3 of the HW belts. For all his gifts I figure that the top HW fighters have too much size & power for him.

My choice of tenses in the last sentence is deliberate because I don't think he's actually faced the top HW fighters in the division yet.

In other words he needs to do more than beat a fading AJ a couple of times to land at the top of this list. And beating DuBois - even if he stops him - isn't enough to get it done.

If he beats any two from this list - Fury, Usyk, Makhmudov, Hrgovic, Zhang - then that would be enough for me.

For the record - my top-5 P4P are (in order) Inoue, Beterbiev, Usyk, Loma, Crawford

 

Yes, let's pretend that Joshua wasn't already KO'd by fat ass Ruiz. Where is Andy on the P4P list?

 

So what has Joshua himself done at heavyweight that victories over him suddenly catapult someone over Crawford? Who has Joshua beaten besides a 40 year old Wlad?

How has he "grown" since losing to Ruiz? To me, he has gotten timid and worse overall. If Ruiz was able to handle his success and stay motivated, his fat ass would've KO'd AJ again.

AJ is overrated until otherwise proven.