What a run it’s been for Oleksandr Usyk. Since September 2021, the quick-moving Ukrainian has outpointed Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury twice apiece and scored a TKO 9 triumph over current IBF champ Daniel Dubois.
Usyk (23-0, 14 KOs) became boxing’s first undisputed heavyweight champion this century and he still reigns as the sport’s best fighter, pound for pound. With his status and career-defining triumphs, the 37-year-old southpaw has now firmly established himself as the greatest heavyweight of this generation.
That should be enough, but fans of the sport always want more.
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One of the questions being thrown around in the wake of Usyk’s rematch win over Fury on Saturday is if he should now be ranked among the greatest of all time. That’s an easy one to ask, but a very difficult one to answer.
The Sporting News tries to provide some clarity on Usyk’s current standing among the heavyweight greats.
Is Oleksandr Usyk the greatest heavyweight champion ever?
In reality, all a fighter can do is prove themselves the best of their generation. When they retire, they’ll have a resume which can be compared to that of their predecessors.
Is Usyk’s resume the greatest in heavyweight history? The former undisputed cruiserweight champ has only had seven fights at heavyweight, five of those title fights. Compare that to Muhammad Ali, who was 21-3 in world title bouts and defeated multiple Hall of Famers, some of them more than once.
Usyk doesn’t have time to match that.
The other way fighters are compared is in head-to-head matchups. Would Usyk beat Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, Mike Tyson or Lennox Lewis? We don’t know and we never will.
What we do know is that Usyk outpointed Joshua and Fury twice each and stopped Dubois. Anything else is reserved for the fantasy section because we’ll never have the evidence. You can have an opinion on a head-to-head matchup but that’s all it’ll ever be.
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In this writer’s opinion, no heavyweight beats all the others because there’s always a fighter who has your number.
Ali was once asked about what many felt was a losing performance against Ken Norton in their third fight, which “The Greatest” won by controversial decision.
“[Norton] happens to have a style that’s hard for me to fight,” said Ali in a 1977 interview with Reg Gutteridge. “Boxing is just styles.
“You take George Foreman, if he came out of retirement and fought Norton, he’ll knock him out. But if [Foreman] fights Jimmy Young, he might lose again.
“Norton comes at you; he can’t back up, he always comes in, and he’s made for people like George Foreman to hit. Jimmy Young is always running, he’s hard to hit. It’s styles that make fighters.”
If it’s good enough for Ali, it should be good enough for any of us.
Usyk is the best heavyweight of this generation and that is an achievement to be celebrated.
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