Holyfield V Usyk

[Ambling Alp II]

Klitschko-Lewis? That fight was awful. Lewis looked like he was in slow motion. had he fought someone who could paunch hard or had any defense he would have lost.
Those other fights were not "great fights". Ancient Klitschko- Joshua? Come on. I am not talking about how many knockdowns there were or if it was supposedly "historically significant'. I mean the quality fo the fight.

I guess you call Brewster-Liakhovic a good fight. certainly not great. How can you watch Bowe-Holyfield and compare these fights to them. come on.

We should expect a great fighter to stop fury and Joshua. Atl east a completely one-sided decision. He went 0 for 4.

Fury beat Wilder. (also got a gifted draw against him.) Wilder is no prime Holyfield. Even after that, there is a drop off. Doesn't compare to Bowe. And there are plenty of guys much better than Fury as well. Looked better and beat better fighters. You have to look at everyone, not just the 20th century. sport has been around way before you became a fan.

[gilgamesh]

I am looking at everyone. I can't look at them all at once. One fight at a time.

You say Lewis vs Klitschko or Klitschko vs Joshua aren't great Heavyweight fights. I disagree with you. Whether or not they're as great as Bowe/Holyfield wasn't what they had to be. They were simply great in their own right. You said there have been no great Heavyweight Championship fights in the last 25 years. You are wrong. Period.

I thought the Draw in the first Fury vs Wilder bout was fair myself. I seem to be one of the few that thinks that, but I stand firmly by that opinion.

You keep saying that Usyk went 0-4 in fights he went 4-0 in. Do you think Floyd Mayweather is 0-50 too?

[gilgamesh]

By the way, just to reiterate.

I have said that Holyfield is better than Usyk.
I have said that Bowe is better than Fury.

As of now I'd say Bowe is a better Heavyweight than Usyk as well, and the likelihood that Usyk can do enough at Heavyweight to narrow that gap is extremely unlikely.

If you take in Usyk's career as a Boxer overall, Cruiserweight and Heavyweight. He has surpassed Bowe, and is still way behind Holyfield in my opinion. The gap between them at Cruiserweight is small, the gap at Heavyweight is fairly large.

[DrDuke]

Klitschko-Lewis? That fight was awful.

Why everyone keep talking to this endless Kalan 2.0 version?

[gilgamesh]

Klitschko-Lewis? That fight was awful.

Why everyone keep talking to this endless Kalan 2.0 version?

Alp is a long time, and generally knowledgeable poster. He sure is curmudgeony about modern fighters though, and you almost suspect that he may be of Russian ancestry with his absolute refusal to give any credit whatsoever to any of the recent Ukrainian Heavyweight Champions.

[DrDuke]

Klitschko-Lewis? That fight was awful.

Why everyone keep talking to this endless Kalan 2.0 version?

Alp is a long time, and generally knowledgeable poster. He sure is curmudgeony about modern fighters though, and you almost suspect that he may be of Russian ancestry with his absolute refusal to give any credit whatsoever to any of the recent Ukrainian Heavyweight Champions.

Well, maybe just not as fat as Kalan 1.0. And I didn't notice him being fond of Russian fighters either, as well as Eastern European in general.

[gilgamesh]

Why everyone keep talking to this endless Kalan 2.0 version?

Alp is a long time, and generally knowledgeable poster. He sure is curmudgeony about modern fighters though, and you almost suspect that he may be of Russian ancestry with his absolute refusal to give any credit whatsoever to any of the recent Ukrainian Heavyweight Champions.

Well, maybe just not as fat as Kalan 1.0. And I didn't notice him being fond of Russian fighters either, as well as Eastern European in general.

You didn't know? You're automatically tougher than those guys if you lost a dozen fights in the 1940's

[DrDuke]

Alp is a long time, and generally knowledgeable poster. He sure is curmudgeony about modern fighters though, and you almost suspect that he may be of Russian ancestry with his absolute refusal to give any credit whatsoever to any of the recent Ukrainian Heavyweight Champions.

Well, maybe just not as fat as Kalan 1.0. And I didn't notice him being fond of Russian fighters either, as well as Eastern European in general.

You didn't know? You're automatically tougher than those guys if you lost a dozen fights in the 1940's

Oh yeah, and back then the weed was greener.

[BroughtonRulesRefuge]

Why couldn't the Wizard beat Fury and Joshua more a lot more connivingly than he did? They are nowhere near the level of Bowe.

He beat Joshua pretty f*cking clearly in their 1st bout. 2nd fight was closer, but he still edged it. Same with Tyson Fury.

Tyson Fury isn't all that terribly far behind Bowe. If he got 2 to 3 more decent wins while not taking any L's he'd be right near Bowe.

If you take Usyk's career as a whole Cruiserweight and Heavyweight, he has surpassed Bowe already.

- Indeed, but best get an update on your memory bank.

In the first encounter I had AJ ahead in a tight fight with Usyk engaged in a fair amount of running. The fight turned at the end of the 10th when Usyk popped AJ's open eyeball with a good shot. His Trainer McCracken doesn't have much experience in boxing compared to Usyk's stock of trainers and were worried about permanent loss of eyesight, but he fought on the best he could as Usyk closed the gap in a fight Usyk was about to get stopped in, ie Frankie Usykenstein.



I had no problem with the decision because they rematched in a very tight split decision going to Usyk that saw AJ finish the last round in a flurry of activity that he won, so natch I thought AJ won, but he didn't. It wasn't a robbery, but clearly among fans with AJ having the most back then, many were outraged. The fight transcended the scoring that saw 5 of the 12 rds split.

Since that fight after all the $$$ AJ won packing stadiums the Blubber could never do, he went into a funk and ain't been right since though he's still highly rated, currently Boxrec #7. He was 28 yrs old for Paul in traditional Athletic Prime Years, but I don't know how serious that car wreck was.

Alpsy keeps bigging up Field and Big Dummy Bowe because he's not an honest fan.

[gilgamesh]

I watched the 2 Usyk vs AJ fights like 2 days ago. I don't need an update on my memory bank. I thought he beat AJ much more convincingly the first time. So did the judges apparently as the 2nd one was a Split Decision while the first was Unanimous.

I thought Usyk won the 1st bout with AJ, 117-111.

I thought Usyk won the 2nd bout with AJ, 115-113.

[cfang]

I had similar scores gil. Alp just can’t see past any modern heavy being any good. I don’t agree with him. In my view the klitschos were boring but both amazing athletes who would have given anyone trouble and in all reality would have stomped on the much smaller heavys from the past. Modern heavys are huge and I thought the days of an Ali sized heavy dominating were over. Until usyk came along. He for me is up there with the greatest heavys of all time. He’s managed to negate huge weight and size disadvantages with skill, incredible fight management and off the scale boxing iq. We aren’t talking Jess Willard or primo carbera who were just big freaks for their size but aj who was an Olympic gold medalist who hits like a truck and fury who is cut from generations of hard bare knuckle men and has amazing talent and speed for man his size. Only uysk could have beaten those guys and no heavy in the past took on and constantly beat such big men. Oh and uysk ofc beat beterbiev in the ams. Just to give an idea of the man’s class.

[Ezzard]

I had similar scores gil. Alp just can’t see past any modern heavy being any good. I don’t agree with him. In my view the klitschos were boring but both amazing athletes who would have given anyone trouble and in all reality would have stomped on the much smaller heavys from the past. Modern heavys are huge and I thought the days of an Ali sized heavy dominating were over. Until usyk came along. He for me is up there with the greatest heavys of all time. He’s managed to negate huge weight and size disadvantages with skill, incredible fight management and off the scale boxing iq. We aren’t talking Jess Willard or primo carbera who were just big freaks for their size but aj who was an Olympic gold medalist who hits like a truck and fury who is cut from generations of hard bare knuckle men and has amazing talent and speed for man his size. Only uysk could have beaten those guys and no heavy in the past took on and constantly beat such big men. Oh and uysk ofc beat beterbiev in the ams. Just to give an idea of the man’s class.

I agree with most if this but Ali was big enough to be able to allow his superior skills to see him home. Even punchers like Haye were able to move up with success. You also have to remember that some guys are outliers... they do better against bigger men than smaller men. These are guys like Dempsey, Louis, Ali, to name a few.

But overall I'm with you.

[Cojimar 1946]

the first fight was even for 8 rounds. You could even have Joshua ahead at that point. Then he got tired and Usyk won the last four rounds. You would expect a great fighter to win a lot more convincingly against someone as limited as Joshua.
Again nobody is perfect. But in his biggest four fights, Usyk was 0 for 4 in showing that he was great.

Fury was not anywhere remotely as good as Bowe. There are virtually dozens of heavyweights better than Fury but not as good as Bowe.
Bowe was better than Fury at virtually every part of the sport.

Fury's biggest win over Wilder. A guy with zero ability except for a big punch. And Fury could only dominate him once out of three times and had to have the judges bail him out for a draw in the first fight. A fight in which he did virtually nothing.

How in the world can anyone watch the Bowe-Holyfield fights and the Fury-Wilder fights and think Fury was remotely near Bowe?

Only in your world is going 4-0 against the best Heavyweights of his era a negative. I don't need to defend Usyk's victories any further they speak for themselves.

As for Fury not being anywhere remotely as good as Bowe, I'd tend to agree, but as far as their records show he's really not far behind Bowe. Bowe's 2 tremendous wins in tremendous battles against Holyfield help him a lot. It also helps him a lot that the bout he lost to Holyfield was by no means embarrassing. He lost the fight, but it was still very competitive, and a great effort on his part.

So yes I do agree that Bowe is better than Fury, and yes the gap is big enough that there will likely be a lot Heavyweights in between them, but Fury MAYBE isn't done yet while Bowe definitely is. So Fury is the only one that could potentially have any say in whether or not that gap gets narrowed. It all depends on what he does from here. If he does nothing. The gap remains pretty large.

You seem to have a real problem with giving any credit to fighters in the modern era. Is there any fighter in the last 25 years you'd have a good opinion of?

4-0 without an impressive win in a weak era for the hw division is a negative when comparing him to great fighters who fought much better competition.

So you realize that Fury is not remotely as good as Bowe, but as far as the records show he is not far behind. As far as the records? This should tell you that the records" can be very deceiving in boxing. Some guy's competition is much, much better than others. Some eras are better than others. If you are fighting in a weak era, you have to dominate your opponents. You have to take all that into consideration. You can just think a win over Tyson fury is the same as beating a prime George Foreman, just because Fury is the best opponent available.
No Fury is not done yet. We can only go by what has happened so far.

The hw division has been awful for almost 25 years. When was the last great hw fight? Not since when Bowe has been fighting.
Of course there have been great fighters in other weight classes during this time. Pacquiao, Mayweather, Golovkin, Marquez, Jones, Hopkins, Ward, De La Hoya, Mosley, Calzaghe, Barrera, Morales etc.

If the division was so sucky you would have guys like Ward and Calzaghe moving up to heavyweight and dominating. Not to mention Canelo, Benavidez, Bivol, etc. Plenty of these guys were as big as past heavyweights.

You would also have athletes from other sports taking up boxing given the massive amounts of money involved.

[Ambling Alp II]

a lot of stuff to respond to.

Regarding Klitschko-Lewis and Joshya-Usyk as being great fights. NoI they were truly great fights, they would not be vastly inferior to Bowe-Holyfield. It's that simply. And Klitschko-Lewis was laughably bad.

If we are going by judges' scorecards which was brought up, well one judge had Usyk winning the first fight 117-112, another 116-112, and the other 115-113. I would expect a great fighter to stop Josua or a least win something like 119-111 or pitch a shutout. Of course, Usyk deserved the decision. However, he should have won more easily.
Btw- Just because a fight is a unanimous decision doesn't mean it was clearcut. And just because it's a split decision doesn't mean it was really close.

Name any great heavyweight from the 1990s and earlier. There is no way that if they had four fights against Joshua and Fury, they would not be able to score 1 stoppage. He failed to dominate one time in his four supposedly big fights. That is what I have said about 100 x now. Yes I know he won all the fights.

I don't have anything personally against Usyk. don't care where he is form. (Have been pulling for Ukraine against Russia. Anyone who reads the Politics Section can see that.) I am glad that he beat Fury and Joshua. Before that, we had all those idiotic comments about Joshua and Fury being so great because of their weight and they would have a weight "advantage " over all the great fighter before them that were not overweight.

My biggest problem with Usyk is that there is not one great performance which makes you think he was really a great heavyweight. Secondly is he always going to get a free pass for fighting so rarely? Is that ever going to be factored in ?

As for Cojimar's last question: The fact that smaller guys have moved up doesn't prove the hw division is good. Btw Usyk moved up. Btw Haye moved, Btw, Chris Byrd moved up.

Do those that believe that hw has been bad for a long time believe I am the only saying this? Outside of Boxrec, I don't know anyone who is excited about the heavyweight boxing. anymore. That the hw division has been so bad for so long is a key reason why boxing is now just a fringe sport.

[gilgamesh]

The AMERICAN Heavyweight division has been bad for a long time. The Heavyweight division as a whole has been ok. That's the real problem. For all of the 20th Century is one great American Heavyweight after another. Now there isn't one, and doesn't seem to be one on the horizon.

[Ambling Alp II]

It's more than that. People don't want to watch a product that sucks.
People recognized that Lennox Lewis was great.
people know that Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were great tennis players, even though none were from the United States.
There have been great baseball players from other countries as well, and they have been acknowledged.

[Cojimar 1946]

No, the fact that Ward, Bivol etc haven't moved up and dominated would seemingly prove the division can't be that bad.

Plenty of non heavyweights could do well in prior eras and become champions. I don't see how anybody could think Bivol, Ward wouldn't beat the champs of the 1930s like Carnera, Baer, Braddock, etc. That would suggest the current era is at the very least better than many prior eras.

I'd even favor some athletes who have never boxed to beat prior champs. I genuinely believe there are NBA players today who could beat Baer because his defense is so terrible. They would also have the advantage of being vastly better athletes.

[Ambling Alp II]

Oh of course. The sport magically got better when you became a fan. That is what a lot of people believe. The fact that some guys didn't up (and some did) doesn't mean that the sport is better.
That you personally don't know anyone that that doesn't think Bivol and Ward would have beaten guys before you were born ?
How many people do you personally know ((outside of the Boxrec universe) who even follow boxing?

You would even favor basketball players over Max Baer? Wow. I mean Wow.
Current ones of course.

[Ezzard]

No, the fact that Ward, Bivol etc haven't moved up and dominated would seemingly prove the division can't be that bad.

Plenty of non heavyweights could do well in prior eras and become champions. I don't see how anybody could think Bivol, Ward wouldn't beat the champs of the 1930s like Carnera, Baer, Braddock, etc. That would suggest the current era is at the very least better than many prior eras.

I'd even favor some athletes who have never boxed to beat prior champs. I genuinely believe there are NBA players today who could beat Baer because his defense is so terrible. They would also have the advantage of being vastly better athletes.

Would Usyk be a basketball star back in the 1930s?

The division has been fabulous for the last 10 years or more with some fantastic fights and I've enjoyed the drama. Love this sport.

[Riddick Bowie]

Great to see after 10 years Cojimar still hasn't tired of coming to the boxers of the past forum to denigrate boxers of the past. Not really the way i'd choose to spend my free time but to each his own.

We see NBA players, NFL, modern "vastly better athletes" box all the time now, in Misfits, Jake Paul cards etc. They can't fight or take a punch, get knocked out by non-athlete influencers, so the idea of them beating Max Baer is laughable. Max Schmeling's right hand couldn't find Baer but someone's going to come off the basketball court and do a Joe Louis on him.

Imagine being a person who genuinely believes this, or, even worse, writing it just to get a reaction. I don't which one is more embarrassing.

As far as the OP goes, I like Usyk, but Joshua and Dubois can't box and Fury can't punch. He outboxed them, in some cases narrowly, so I can't see him surviving Bowe, who was both monster sized and could punch. A lot of people thought an old Holyfield edged Lewis in the rematch, again, a more ominous proposition than Joshua, Dubois or Fury. Holyfield takes it.

[Cent0089]

He failed to dominate one time in his four supposedly big fights.

He dominated all 4 fights

[Ambling Alp II]

Absolutely not. Not saying they were razor thin close. But he didn't dominate any of them. Zero stoppages. One knockdown total. Not one lopsided win by points. Would expect a truly great fighter to do much more in four chances against such limited fighters.

[gilgamesh]

Absolutely not. Not saying they were razor thin close. But he didn't dominate any of them. Zero stoppages. One knockdown total. Not one lopsided win by points. Would expect a truly great fighter to do much more in four chances against such limited fighters.

Heavyweight Champions are not limited fighters.

Also Usyk is 38 years old. I'm pretty sure He'd be one of the 5 Oldest Heavyweight Champions ever. Many fighters couldn't whip cream by the time they turned 38. Usyk is the Champion of the World.

Give the guy credit.

[Cent0089]

Would expect a truly great fighter to do much more in four chances against such limited fighters.

43 years old Larry Holmes was more limited than prime Fury and Joshua. Great prime Holyfield fought close fight with him, closer than Usyk in those 4 fights. Also, if Fury and Joshua are limited, Moorer is limited too. And prime great Holyfield took an L there (btw i dont think neither of the fighters are limited, just speaking with your logic )

[gilgamesh]

Would expect a truly great fighter to do much more in four chances against such limited fighters.

43 years old Larry Holmes was more limited than prime Fury and Joshua. Great prime Holyfield fought close fight with him, closer than Usyk in those 4 fights. Also, if Fury and Joshua are limited, Moorer is limited too. And prime great Holyfield took an L there (btw i dont think neither of the fighters are limited, just speaking with your logic )

John Ruiz was damn sure limited, and Holyfield went 1-1-1 with him, and honestly deserved to go 0-2-1 with him. The 1 win Holyfield has in that series he didn't deserve. The best Holyfield did in any of those bouts is the 3rd one.