HOLYFIELD beats Usyk at Cruiser or HW.

[MalevolentBite]

Correct! The NFL... the one major league that's culturally and structurally American-only. (no one else plays it). Kind of like the '80s and '90s, when Eastern Europeans were banned from participating in pro boxing, and Americans still called themselves "champions of the world."

The last refuge for American exceptionalism is the NFL — because nobody else cares about it apart from Americans themselves.

You had the same phenomenon in tennis. At one point, it was completely dominated by Americans (Sampras, Agassi, Courier, McEnroe, Connors, etc.). But once international competition caught up, it was over .... especially after the rise of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic.

It's kind of embarrassing, really. During the 2024 Olympic basketball tournament, Jokic nearly led Serbia to an upset against a heavily favored and stacked American team — a roster featuring Curry, Booker, LeBron, Tatum, Davis, Durant, Edwards (to name a few). And yet, the U.S. only managed a narrow 95–91 win in a close semifinal.

Just imagine: Serbia’s population is approximately 6.6 million, while the United States has about 330 million people. Considering that massive difference, the Serbian basketball team coming so close to defeating the USA “Dream Team”... made up of some of the best NBA players — is statistically remarkable.

Serbia has roughly 1/50th the population of the U.S. Embarrassing. But hey, there’s always the NFL, right?

To be objective NBA and FIBA have different rules. Its not really the same style of play since the rules and 3 point line is different. plus basketball is a team sport. These players are not practicing together year in and year out. Some of those European national teams never change between the FIBA tournaments. Most American playera dont care about international play so most players tend to rest during the off season and not get injuried.

As an American i can count on my hands how often I watched tennis. So culturally speaking it fell out of popularity sometime around right before my generation. Remember it takes one generation before to set the tone just like baseball now the best baseball players are international. Thw generation before me, black americans stopped playing baseball hence the change culturally from the negro leagues to baseball in the 70s and 80s to now.

I think culturally basketball will still be played here in America at a high level but Europeans have better fundentals i definitely agree. I noticed that in my generation.

It was a time Europeans were the best 3 point shooters now everyone in the NBA shoots 3s.

Lets not act like players that didnt make the cut in the nba dont dominate in europe like Shane Larkin. And let's not act like dominant Europeans that didn't do anything in the NBA like Vassilis Spanoulis.

As for boxing. I think we will never have another elite American heavyweight. Never. Culturally its not there anymore.

If you weigh over 180lbs and over 6ft. You going to the NBA or NFL. AJ and DD if born in America they would be linebackers or Defensive ends in the NFL.

Who are these great eastern European heavyweights that didn't get a fair chance at the heavyweight belt in the 80s/90s ?

[MalevolentBite]

Ok, so how do you not see that this directly contradicts your point in the other thread where you are attempting to give Toney credit for beating an older version of that Evander Holyfield?

And it’s not based on that thread, that thread happened months ago and I’d forgot it even existed.

It’s based on the Toney-Julian Jackson thread Are you slow or what? It’s on the FIRST PAGE of the history section. To which you attempt to give Toney credit for beating Holyfield.l and act like it’s something worth praising but then again directly contradict that in this thread by saying he was old when he fought Byrd.

You're trolling. I stated I gave him credit for the blowout he put on holyfield. I still do like i stated here but I am not saying James toney would had beaten holyfield if holyfield was in his PRIME.

I said this 4 times already. I give him credit for the fight that he won in Context! The context was James toney looked great against an old Holyfield and James toney went up to heavyweight which is credit but i am not holding that loss against Holyfields career because he was old and not in his prime.

I clearly stated this.

[IronDanHamza]

You're trolling. I stated I gave him credit for the blowout he put on holyfield. I still do like i stated here but I am not saying James toney would had beaten holyfield if holyfield was in his PRIME.

I said this 4 times already. I give him credit for the fight that he won in Context! The context was James toney looked great against an old Holyfield and James toney went up to heavyweight which is credit but i am not holding that loss against Holyfields career because he was old and not in his prime.

I clearly stated this.

I didn’t say you said he’d beat a prime Holyfield. Obviously he wouldn’t do that, any one with even a single brain cell knows that.

You LITERALLY responded to my point that he’s never dominated a top level fighter with the Holyfield fight what the fuck are you talking about?!?!?!!!!!!!!!! Go and read the thread back.

In that thread, the Julian Jackson one from the other day, (NOT the Canelo one from months ago), you praise Toney’s win over Holyfield as a dominant win over a top level fighter in response to my post and yet in this thread you DIRECTLY contradict that by refuting Dan_Cov’s point about southpaws by saying Holyfield was old vs Byrd when he was a year YOUNGER when he fought Byrd.

Why would you give Toney credit for his “blowout” win over Holyfield’s corpse but then downplay Byrd doing it by admitting he was old? When he was younger vs Byrd It makes NO sense.

It’s there in plain English mate. It is the literal epitome of a flip flopping contradiction. How you can’t see that is baffling.

[GhostofDempsey]

Does Evan Fields accomplish this with or without PEDs? Don't get me wrong, I think it's a great fight at either weight, but Usyk is 38 and defeating younger, stronger opponents. Holyfield at 38 lost to John Ruiz.

[ONOFF]

To be objective NBA and FIBA have different rules. Its not really the same style of play since the rules and 3 point line is different. plus basketball is a team sport. These players are not practicing together year in and year out. Some of those European national teams never change between the FIBA tournaments. Most American playera dont care about international play so most players tend to rest during the off season and not get injuried.

As an American i can count on my hands how often I watched tennis. So culturally speaking it fell out of popularity sometime around right before my generation. Remember it takes one generation before to set the tone just like baseball now the best baseball players are international. Thw generation before me, black americans stopped playing baseball hence the change culturally from the negro leagues to baseball in the 70s and 80s to now.

I think culturally basketball will still be played here in America at a high level but Europeans have better fundentals i definitely agree. I noticed that in my generation.

It was a time Europeans were the best 3 point shooters now everyone in the NBA shoots 3s.

Lets not act like players that didnt make the cut in the nba dont dominate in europe like Shane Larkin. And let's not act like dominant Europeans that didn't do anything in the NBA like Vassilis Spanoulis.

As for boxing. I think we will never have another elite American heavyweight. Never. Culturally its not there anymore.

If you weigh over 180lbs and over 6ft. You going to the NBA or NFL. AJ and DD if born in America they would be linebackers or Defensive ends in the NFL.

Who are these great eastern European heavyweights that didn't get a fair chance at the heavyweight belt in the 80s/90s ?

But you're only pretending to be objective, aren't you? Otherwise, you wouldn't be moving the goalposts or making excuses to explain why Americans aren't dominating anymore. (Obviously the NFL doesn't count since no one else in the world plays it seriously.) Furthermore, FIBA vs NBA are moot points. Just look at the NBA itself then.

2024-25 MVP SGA (Canada) (Jokic was obviously robbed again, the guy should logically have 5 MVP titles by now but that would be a sacrilege since he'd have as many as the likes of Bill Russell and Michael Jordan)
2023-24 MVP Jokic (Serbia)
2022-23 MVP Embiid (Cameroon) (Though Jokic was robbed).
2021-22 MVP Jokic (Serbia)
2020-21 MVP Jokic (Serbia)
2019-20 MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece)
2018-19 MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece)

Do you start to see a pattern here ? The last time an american player won was in 2017. Find all the excuses you want, the reality is that the current percentage of American-born NBA players is approximately 75-78 percent, meaning less than 25% of foreigners are at the top of the food chain in an american sport where you guys are the vast majority. One of the biggest trade in NBA history was none other than Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis.

You say: "black americans stopped playing baseball hence the change culturally from the negro leagues to baseball in the 70s and 80s to now."
Sounds like cope to me. This is the classic “after this, therefore because of this” fallacy. It suggests that the decline in Black American participation in baseball caused the cultural changes in the sport simply because it happened afterward. But correlation ≠ causation.

"Black Americans stopped playing" is reductive and lazy analysis. Culture doesn't shift because one group "opts out" it shifts due to systemic, media-driven or economic and institutional factors. Also, If the absence of Black players explains a cultural or qualitative decline in baseball, then it implies they were innately responsible for its excellence right ? So that's a subtle nod to racial essentialism. In other words, it suggests Black athletes are culturally or biologically exceptional.

Now, you'd have a point as far as the 100m and 200m sprints at the Olympics are concerned.(mostly West African), and the same is true for East Africans (Kenyans, Ethiopians), but they only dominate long-distance running. But you're fooling yourself if you think it's equally true for any athletic disciplines. Some races will be better suited for running ( (fast-twitch muscle fibers, leg morphology, etc..) , others for swimming, ( longer torsos, broader shoulders, higher average body fat %) .. Or Strength Sports (e.g. powerlifting, Olympic lifting , Compact builds, limb leverage advantage.) ..

[ONOFF]

Who are these great eastern European heavyweights that didn't get a fair chance at the heavyweight belt in the 80s/90s ?

Ok i skipped that part..


I'll mention a few but the fact remains, you have several generations of boxers who simply couldn't participate in pro-boxing. Today's reality is that boxing is vastly more diversified than it ever was several decades ago. Not because all the best fled to the NFL (that's the cope), but because the rest of the world caught up and everything changed for the better after banned countries were allowed to finally participate in pro boxing.

Mike Tyson's competition was mostly American. Well over 70% of his opponents were from America. Compare that to Lennox Lewis's 44 professional bouts. The same is equally true for the likes of the Klitschko bros, Joshua, etc..

The 90's were "special". Mostly for American fans i guess. But you'll find future world champions—especially from the U.S. and U.K.—were beaten in the amateurs by Soviet, Cuban, and other Eastern Bloc fighters.

Prime example of this:
Rid**** Bowe—who was beaten twice by Alexander Miroshnichenko—eventually won their third fight at the 1988 Olympics, though Miroshnichenko still floored Bowe in the first round. Obviously, Bowe went on to have a far more successful professional career, but the point remains: he was able to start his pro career at 21, while Miroshnichenko had to wait several more years for that opportunity.

Miroshnichenko also defeated Lennox Lewis (who, granted, wasn’t American).

Tyrell Biggs, the 1984 Olympic gold medalist who later fought Mike Tyson for the heavyweight title, lost to Alexander Yagubkin. While that might be dismissed as irrelevant, the fact is, Yagubkin simply couldn't turn professional.

Yagubkin also beat Michael Bentt convincingly at the World Cup in Seoul—the same Michael Bentt who had defeated Ray Mercer twice in the amateurs. And again, Yagubkin had no professional career.

Igor Vysotsky knocked out Tony Tubbs in the second round in 1976. Mike Tyson did the same in 1988. While we can write it off as a footnote in their careers, the fact remains: Vysotsky had no opportunity to fight professionally unless he defected from the USSR. I'm not suggesting he would’ve had a career comparable to Tyson’s, but that’s not the point.

The point is that, for decades, American boxers benefited from a significant competitive advantage simply because they had access to the professional circuit—an opportunity many elite fighters from the Soviet bloc were denied. I'm not blaming it entirely on America or claiming it was some sort of conspiracy theory against eastern euro boxers, but that was the actual situation back then. All I’m saying is that, for American boxers, the road to a professional career was wide open—a virtual boulevard compared to what Eastern Bloc fighters faced.

[elfag]

I said James Toney looked good against Holyfield. It was one of his best fights considering he moved up from middleweight. Thats what I said.

holyfield was 41 years old

[ThunderFists]

holyfield wins, he would rough up usyk and use his famed third glove (head) to cut up usyk, the most success a fighter had against at heavyweight was chisora and he was roughing up usyk to success, i think holyfield would adopt that game plan and make usyk really uncomfortable, bare in mind, holyfield isnt just throwing 3 punch combos, he would throw 20 punch combos

[ONOFF]

holyfield wins, he would rough up usyk and use his famed third glove (head) to cut up usyk, the most success a fighter had against at heavyweight was chisora and he was roughing up usyk to success, i think holyfield would adopt that game plan and make usyk really uncomfortable, bare in mind, holyfield isnt just throwing 3 punch combos, he would throw 20 punch combos

So you're picking Holyfield to beat this version of Usyk because he’d “rough him up” and use his head as a third glove...Like it’s 1992 and referees don’t exist. You’re also basing your argument on Chisora having some early success against an early-stage heavyweight Usyk… while ignoring that the Usyk who out-adjusted Fury (who’s much bigger and craftier) is not remotely the same guy.

If roughhousing were enough to beat Usyk, why didn’t a 270-pound Fury succeed at that?

It also begs the question: if Usyk couldn’t handle physical pressure, why did he absorb Joshua’s best body attack and then increase his output in the championship rounds? Do you think Holyfield hits harder or is more physically imposing than AJ? ( How heavy and tall is AJ again ? )

And finally, do you genuinely believe a boxer who makes mid-round tactical shifts against his opponents would somehow be unable to adapt to a predictable pressure pattern like Holyfield’s “20-punch” bursts?

This assumes Usyk is some sort of static target. He’s not. He’s a tactical shapeshifter. You’re throwing 90s tactics at a 2020s fight IQ. If roughing up Usyk were the answer, someone would’ve succeeded by now. Instead, they keep getting solved, dissected, and outpaced down the stretch.


What’s Holyfield’s answer when the roughing stops working and the puzzle keeps changing?

Look, at the end of the day, your opinion is as valid as mine. Conclusion? We’ll never know… will we?

[ThunderFists]

So you're picking Holyfield to beat this version of Usyk because he’d “rough him up” and use his head as a third glove...Like it’s 1992 and referees don’t exist. You’re also basing your argument on Chisora having some early success against an early-stage heavyweight Usyk… while ignoring that the Usyk who out-adjusted Fury (who’s much bigger and craftier) is not remotely the same guy.

If roughhousing were enough to beat Usyk, why didn’t a 270-pound Fury succeed at that?

It also begs the question: if Usyk couldn’t handle physical pressure, why did he absorb Joshua’s best body attack and then increase his output in the championship rounds? Do you think Holyfield hits harder or is more physically imposing than AJ? ( How heavy and tall is AJ again ? )

And finally, do you genuinely believe a boxer who makes mid-round tactical shifts against his opponents would somehow be unable to adapt to a predictable pressure pattern like Holyfield’s “20-punch” bursts?

This assumes Usyk is some sort of static target. He’s not. He’s a tactical shapeshifter. You’re throwing 90s tactics at a 2020s fight IQ. If roughing up Usyk were the answer, someone would’ve succeeded by now. Instead, they keep getting solved, dissected, and outpaced down the stretch.


What’s Holyfield’s answer when the roughing stops working and the puzzle keeps changing?

Look, at the end of the day, your opinion is as valid as mine. Conclusion? We’ll never know… will we?

why didn't fury do it, easy- because fury is not holyfield, holyfield fought like a man possessed on his day, in your face eating, your shots, throwing combos and ripping to the body every minute of every round. lets not talk as if fury is this amazingly crafty fighter when in reality he is a bit stiff and can be ugly with his sloppiness. joshua is another bad example, he is a good fighter but isn't good at using his physical attributes, just like fury- both were afraid to pressure because of their damaged chin, holyfield had an iron chin.

fights haven't changed much since the 1990s other than the tech we use, rings sizes are the same, gloves are the same, biased referees are plentiful. I cant see usyk dissecting a holyfield because he would not allow him the space to do that.