The debate cannot be debated at this point if you look at boxing history and both fighters and previous champions.
Yes, different eras have different fighters at the highest level.
But Oleksandr Usyk’s beating Tyson Fury for a second time last weekend in Saudi Arabia cements his legacy in boxing history easily.
Why?
Fury many years ago at one point dethroned an all-time great in Vladimir Klitschko, on away soil in Germany, when no one was even coming close to winning a single round from the Ukrainian at the time.
Fast forward years later Fury came back from things that no boxer ever has in history with weight loss of nearly 150lbs to get back to boxing, mental health, alcohol and substance and abuse and more, to not only do that, but beat and then proceed to batter, a man who was undefeated at the time considered the biggest, most dangerous puncher that ever lived (more than Foreman and Tyson) for one single knockout punch power — in Deontay Wilder — and got up off the deck to do it and knock him out.
Usyk, therefore, as a man who became one of the few ever in history to become undisputed cruiserweight champion and then step up to become undisputed heavyweight champion, and beat Tyson Fury twice, and remain undefeated and achieve everything he has as amateur and pro, battering everyone in countries all around the world as a road warrior that would make Glen Johnson’s travelling success look like nothing — deserves his place already as a boxing great.
Usyk, as Turki Alalshikh even said, is a genuine, real life, hero.
The thing is, he won’t be appreciated fully until he’s gone.
That’s often the case and some people only liked Muhammad Ali when he got old and sick — then was a legend to everyone.
Muhammad Ali was loved by the majority of people during his career in boxing but not by a small few who disagreed with him about the war in Vietnam at the time during his career.
Usyk is not Muhammad Ali, obviously, not by a long shot, but Usyk is an all-time great in boxing already after everything he has achieved.
He has never lost as a professional either.
A generational talent — Oleksandr Usyk.
