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Now that Usyk is the heavyweight champ I'm seeing a lot of people say some version of now that AJ lost he's finished, has no chance in the rematch, has no chance against Wilder or Fury, is done at the top level of the sport, and indeed has always ****** or been a fraud.
I personally have always felt AJ was overrated (I would have picked Fury over him at basically any point after Fury-Wilder 1) but I personally came away impressed not just with Usyk's demonstration of skill and smart game plan to win the fight but also with Joshua's own skills and discipline in staying competitive and in what I believe to be an extremely high level display of boxing across twelve rounds. AJ was very effective with his jab, warmed up in the middle of the fight to imo make the fight even or close to even in round 8, did visible damage to the face of Usyk, almost entirely avoided clinching or other negative tactics which kept the fight watchable (even if maybe those tactics could have helped him out), and kept fighting in those late rounds through what looked like a pretty bad eye injury.
This to me was a really good performance by Joshua that just happened to come up against a great performance by Usyk, who going into this fight I felt was a 50/50 type opponent with pound for pound skills and not the 2 to 1 underdog (or indeed any kind of underdog) people seemed to believe be was before the fight. So I was not surprised that he gave Joshua a ton of trouble, he's the kind of fighter who would give everybody trouble
But maybe because lots of people felt differently going into the fight and believed Joshua would have an easy time with this smaller fighter and knock him out or finish him, they seem to feel that Usyk actually winning against Joshua despite their expectations means they not only overestimates Joshua but actually he must just not have been very good at all to have lost this matchup in the first place.
I think there's a lot of people out there who never once considered the idea that Usyk could win this fight, and when he did win the fight they realized how good Usyk actually is to make an accomplishment like this happen. They realized after the fight they saw that the way they had thought about the matchup was wrong, and that the fighter they believed to be an underdog was actually one of the most skilled guys in the sport who they were mistaken to count out.
But there's another set of people who never thought he would win, and when he did they decided he won because AJ was never actually that good after all, or has been "damaged" to the point that he could lose to someone like Usyk. And to me that comes off a lot like trying to undercut the quality of Usyk's win. These guys don't want to admit they never gave a thought to Usyk being good enough and instead would rather assume his opponent was trash to be losing to him.
As boxing fans we should always try to recognize that losing to a great fighter is no mark of shame. And being competitive in loss with a great fighter is something to be proud of. Recognizing this makes both the fights we watch and the overall sport better not just in the moment but also for history. We should want to see great fighters beating good fighters. I don't understand those who would rather have seen a good fighter beat a trash fighter.
I personally have always felt AJ was overrated (I would have picked Fury over him at basically any point after Fury-Wilder 1) but I personally came away impressed not just with Usyk's demonstration of skill and smart game plan to win the fight but also with Joshua's own skills and discipline in staying competitive and in what I believe to be an extremely high level display of boxing across twelve rounds. AJ was very effective with his jab, warmed up in the middle of the fight to imo make the fight even or close to even in round 8, did visible damage to the face of Usyk, almost entirely avoided clinching or other negative tactics which kept the fight watchable (even if maybe those tactics could have helped him out), and kept fighting in those late rounds through what looked like a pretty bad eye injury.
This to me was a really good performance by Joshua that just happened to come up against a great performance by Usyk, who going into this fight I felt was a 50/50 type opponent with pound for pound skills and not the 2 to 1 underdog (or indeed any kind of underdog) people seemed to believe be was before the fight. So I was not surprised that he gave Joshua a ton of trouble, he's the kind of fighter who would give everybody trouble
But maybe because lots of people felt differently going into the fight and believed Joshua would have an easy time with this smaller fighter and knock him out or finish him, they seem to feel that Usyk actually winning against Joshua despite their expectations means they not only overestimates Joshua but actually he must just not have been very good at all to have lost this matchup in the first place.
I think there's a lot of people out there who never once considered the idea that Usyk could win this fight, and when he did win the fight they realized how good Usyk actually is to make an accomplishment like this happen. They realized after the fight they saw that the way they had thought about the matchup was wrong, and that the fighter they believed to be an underdog was actually one of the most skilled guys in the sport who they were mistaken to count out.
But there's another set of people who never thought he would win, and when he did they decided he won because AJ was never actually that good after all, or has been "damaged" to the point that he could lose to someone like Usyk. And to me that comes off a lot like trying to undercut the quality of Usyk's win. These guys don't want to admit they never gave a thought to Usyk being good enough and instead would rather assume his opponent was trash to be losing to him.
As boxing fans we should always try to recognize that losing to a great fighter is no mark of shame. And being competitive in loss with a great fighter is something to be proud of. Recognizing this makes both the fights we watch and the overall sport better not just in the moment but also for history. We should want to see great fighters beating good fighters. I don't understand those who would rather have seen a good fighter beat a trash fighter.