The **BOXING** thread (Vol 4)
Discussion
Unreal said:
Top 5 ATG. No question. Won everything. Ducked no-one. Unbeaten. Never on the floor.
Plenty of fighters burn bright but only for a short while . Longevity has to be part of the ranking.
Who is up with him? For me Ali, Floyd, Rocky and Dempsey, with Joe Louis, Lennox, Sugar Ray, Leonard, Hagler and Duran making up the table.
Man, top 5 is a bold, bold callPlenty of fighters burn bright but only for a short while . Longevity has to be part of the ranking.
Who is up with him? For me Ali, Floyd, Rocky and Dempsey, with Joe Louis, Lennox, Sugar Ray, Leonard, Hagler and Duran making up the table.
So that makes him the best this century bar Floyd who you mentioned, ahead of an 8-division world champion in Pacquiao?
There are so many fighters in the long history of the sport with belts in multiple weight classes and long reigns as king that I find it really hard to put Usyk, with an impressive but not very long list of opponents, right up there.
Some names off the top of my head that I'd really struggle to argue Usyk ahead of:
Archie Moore - something line 200 fights and over 180 wins, ruled the LHW division for a decade.
Ezzard Charles - often regarded as the greatest LHW in history, beat Moore, beat countless others
Willie Pep - another guy who fought 200 odd times, won his first 60 something of them. Was Featherweight king for something like 6 years with God knows how many defences
Emilie Griffith - 5 time world champion, dominated Welterweight in the 60s and had a whole bunch of 2,3, 4 fight rivalries which he came out best in nearly all of
Henry Armstrong - won titles from Feather to Welter, and he won titles in 3 weight classes in under a year (and that's traditional weight classes, so going from Feather, to Welter, then down to Lightweight)
Carlos Monzon - dominated the MW division for the best part of a decade with I think 15 consecutive defences,
There are so many others, as well. In the more modern era, Holyfield, Jones Jr, Hopkins, De La Hoya, Chavez, Sweet Pea, Chocolatito and others I'm forgetting all have good arguments to rank ahead of Usyk (and vice versa)
Boxing has such a long and rich history that it's so hard for someone to come along and break the top 50 with the amount they fight these days, let alone the top 10.
Usyk's name undoubtedly belongs in the mix, and in the same breath as the best to ever lace them up, but I think there's a lot of recency bias being thrown around here
Pugaris said:
Unreal said:
Top 5 ATG. No question. Won everything. Ducked no-one. Unbeaten. Never on the floor.
Plenty of fighters burn bright but only for a short while . Longevity has to be part of the ranking.
Who is up with him? For me Ali, Floyd, Rocky and Dempsey, with Joe Louis, Lennox, Sugar Ray, Leonard, Hagler and Duran making up the table.
Man, top 5 is a bold, bold callPlenty of fighters burn bright but only for a short while . Longevity has to be part of the ranking.
Who is up with him? For me Ali, Floyd, Rocky and Dempsey, with Joe Louis, Lennox, Sugar Ray, Leonard, Hagler and Duran making up the table.
So that makes him the best this century bar Floyd who you mentioned, ahead of an 8-division world champion in Pacquiao?
There are so many fighters in the long history of the sport with belts in multiple weight classes and long reigns as king that I find it really hard to put Usyk, with an impressive but not very long list of opponents, right up there.
Some names off the top of my head that I'd really struggle to argue Usyk ahead of:
Archie Moore - something line 200 fights and over 180 wins, ruled the LHW division for a decade.
Ezzard Charles - often regarded as the greatest LHW in history, beat Moore, beat countless others
Willie Pep - another guy who fought 200 odd times, won his first 60 something of them. Was Featherweight king for something like 6 years with God knows how many defences
Emilie Griffith - 5 time world champion, dominated Welterweight in the 60s and had a whole bunch of 2,3, 4 fight rivalries which he came out best in nearly all of
Henry Armstrong - won titles from Feather to Welter, and he won titles in 3 weight classes in under a year (and that's traditional weight classes, so going from Feather, to Welter, then down to Lightweight)
Carlos Monzon - dominated the MW division for the best part of a decade with I think 15 consecutive defences,
There are so many others, as well. In the more modern era, Holyfield, Jones Jr, Hopkins, De La Hoya, Chavez, Sweet Pea, Chocolatito and others I'm forgetting all have good arguments to rank ahead of Usyk (and vice versa)
Boxing has such a long and rich history that it's so hard for someone to come along and break the top 50 with the amount they fight these days, let alone the top 10.
Usyk's name undoubtedly belongs in the mix, and in the same breath as the best to ever lace them up, but I think there's a lot of recency bias being thrown around here
Wheelspinning said:
philv said:
Id like to see usyk retire.
I like the guy and he should go out as one of the few unbeaten greats.
He's better than fury, but fury is so big, any rematch could go either way.
Then aj v fury.
Then hopefully fury buggers off back to morcambe and retires.
I concur.I like the guy and he should go out as one of the few unbeaten greats.
He's better than fury, but fury is so big, any rematch could go either way.
Then aj v fury.
Then hopefully fury buggers off back to morcambe and retires.
Usyk has nothing left to prove; he should go out like Lennox, albeit with an even greater record of achievements including zero losses and zero draws.
If Fury continues, whether a rematch or against AJ, he has to remove that idiot of a father from his inner circle.
Unless there's some heavy penalty for Usyk I'd walk away, move on from Boxing and enjoy his family and status as a living legend. There's noone left to beat and the bleating of classless fodder like the Fury's is meaningless. Let someone else try & unify the division without ducking fights.
glazbagun said:
Wheelspinning said:
philv said:
Id like to see usyk retire.
I like the guy and he should go out as one of the few unbeaten greats.
He's better than fury, but fury is so big, any rematch could go either way.
Then aj v fury.
Then hopefully fury buggers off back to morcambe and retires.
I concur.I like the guy and he should go out as one of the few unbeaten greats.
He's better than fury, but fury is so big, any rematch could go either way.
Then aj v fury.
Then hopefully fury buggers off back to morcambe and retires.
Usyk has nothing left to prove; he should go out like Lennox, albeit with an even greater record of achievements including zero losses and zero draws.
If Fury continues, whether a rematch or against AJ, he has to remove that idiot of a father from his inner circle.
Unless there's some heavy penalty for Usyk I'd walk away, move on from Boxing and enjoy his family and status as a living legend. There's noone left to beat and the bleating of classless fodder like the Fury's is meaningless. Let someone else try & unify the division without ducking fights.
Unreal said:
Good post. I think I'd like to see AJ v Fury more than any other HW fight now. I think current AJ would level him and that would be that.
Me too but I think fury will go for the rematch as that really gets him out of bed to beat the first man who has beat him. He really upped his game and with more training, less dicking about, it would be even closer.There's no way Fury is taking on AJ when he can get another shot at Usyk and the belts, plus all the coin and fame that's associated with that.
He'll invoke the re-match and the money that follows, if Usyk retires (I don't think he will) you'll hear nothing more than Fury shouting how he's ducked him
He'll invoke the re-match and the money that follows, if Usyk retires (I don't think he will) you'll hear nothing more than Fury shouting how he's ducked him
jasonrobertson86 said:
Unreal said:
Good post. I think I'd like to see AJ v Fury more than any other HW fight now. I think current AJ would level him and that would be that.
Me too but I think fury will go for the rematch as that really gets him out of bed to beat the first man who has beat him. He really upped his game and with more training, less dicking about, it would be even closer.
PRO5T said:
There's no way Fury is taking on AJ when he can get another shot at Usyk and the belts, plus all the coin and fame that's associated with that.
He'll invoke the re-match and the money that follows, if Usyk retires (I don't think he will) you'll hear nothing more than Fury shouting how he's ducked him
I read somewhere that the IBF belt will go shortly so that will make it a very short reign as undisputed.He'll invoke the re-match and the money that follows, if Usyk retires (I don't think he will) you'll hear nothing more than Fury shouting how he's ducked him
As for invoking, I wonder if he can force it or if there's a payment get out because some of the bodies will have mandatories they'll want to see honoured and Usyk might prefer those. There are contracts and then there's enforcing them...
philv said:
Punch Stats show usyk as the winner imho.
There's an AI company doing this analysis now that I think is much better than Compubox, which despite the name is just 2 dudes counting. Shows it even more in favour of Usyk: https://www.reddit.com/r/Boxing/s/cbHCoA04pA
I can't work out Fury's game plan during the fight.
The body shots were hurting Uysk yet he kept disengaging and letting Uysk box him into the ropes.
Maybe he was listening to his gobs
te dad as I'm sure I heard them saying after he nearly got flopped that he was winning the match.
Apparently any rematch won't be for undisputed because the IBF are going to strip the belt for not facing their mandatory?
The body shots were hurting Uysk yet he kept disengaging and letting Uysk box him into the ropes.
Maybe he was listening to his gobs
te dad as I'm sure I heard them saying after he nearly got flopped that he was winning the match.Apparently any rematch won't be for undisputed because the IBF are going to strip the belt for not facing their mandatory?
SmoothCriminal said:
I can't work out Fury's game plan during the fight.
The body shots were hurting Uysk yet he kept disengaging and letting Uysk box him into the ropes.
Maybe he was listening to his gobste dad as I'm sure I heard them saying after he nearly got flopped that he was winning the match.
Apparently any rematch won't be for undisputed because the IBF are going to strip the belt for not facing their mandatory?
It appeared he didn't have the confidence to engage and try and dominate the ring space and thought he could rely on sporadic attacks and counter punching. We may never know, but I suspect that was a recognition that he couldn't match Usyk's conditioning over 12 rounds.The body shots were hurting Uysk yet he kept disengaging and letting Uysk box him into the ropes.
Maybe he was listening to his gobs
te dad as I'm sure I heard them saying after he nearly got flopped that he was winning the match.Apparently any rematch won't be for undisputed because the IBF are going to strip the belt for not facing their mandatory?
That would always be a dangerous strategy given judges' frequent favouring of aggression and when punch volume and significance is integral to the scoring process.
It might have worked against a less aggressive, mobile and volume puncher but those of us who know boxing knew he had to fight Usyk and stop him or outwork him to win. Do that against someone who has never been floored and is renowned as one of the best conditioned fighters on the planet. Unlikely and so it proved.
dance around and take pot shots then clinch is the Fury way, i don't feel like he really changed up his gameplan. It works providing your opponent doesn't have the movement, fitness and volume of punches usyk kept coming with.
It's a style i envisage would work really well against the static, efficient AJ we all came to loathe.
It's a style i envisage would work really well against the static, efficient AJ we all came to loathe.
NuckyThompson said:
tuscaneer said:
I'm still nonplussed at the amount of people who think Joshua is no good ...
I’ve always thought he’s decent he’s just had to learn how box more so than perhaps Usyk and fury who are more natural fighters. It’s hard to explain but I’d put myself in that bracket where I’m not as fluid when I box because it’s not natural to me whereas I’ve seen others in the gym that have a more natural flow to their work. In a way you have to admire AJ for that as he’s grafted his way up to the highest level. I’ve always though fury makes easy work of AJ but this is the first time I’ve though AJ can beat fury. And that’s because Fury can’t seem to stay switched on and fight intelligently for a whole 12 rounds and I think AJ if he can get Fury hurt like he has been by Usyk, wilder and Ngannou he will finish the job
Yeah, totally get the Joshua thing.. it's not as seemingly natural as someone like fury.... But also, i remember a really young fury making waves as an amateur...first time I saw him I thought he looked terrible...dead jerky jerky and definitely no Larry Holmes straight out the box!... By the time he was a pro he still didn't look great to me, John McDermott beat him well with the basics in that first fight
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