HOLYFIELD beats Usyk at Cruiser or HW.

[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.

[Zelda]

It would be competitive, but Holyfield was no joke. Usyk hasn't faced the type of competition Holyfield faced at HW.

[PRINCEKOOL]

Haye’? That’s the best you could come up with to prove your point? The guy who pulled out of two scheduled fights against Fury back in 2013? The same guy who got knocked down several times by Bellew? (And even got dropped by Mormeck?)

He was all over the place against Wlad Klitschko (in a bad way), even admitted Wlad was better than him. Klitschko himself was pretty one-dimensional compared to Usyk’s approach to boxing. So ok...Prime Wlad had the size, the skill, the power, and arguably a better jab than Larry Holmes. But he was way too cautious. Almost never improvised on the fly...His whole game was about sticking to a strict plan, dominating with the jab, then timing the right hand.

You ever watch that dreadful fight he had against Povetkin? The one where he was excessively clinching and holding the entire time? (Come to think of it, that was also, originally, a part of Fury’s plan against Usyk. But that kind of stuff doesn’t work when your target is moving non-stop for 12 rounds.)


As for Bowe vs Holyfield... "Disappointed" is the first word that comes to mind. Exciting fights, but disappointed by Holyfield, of course, since he clearly had dreadful game plans against an overrated big man like Ridd@ck Bowe. (Let’s not forget, Bowe had terrible conditioning and struggled against Golota on two separate occasions. Andrew was undeniably winning on the scorecards in both of their fights before being disqualified. Golota himself had decent mobility and powerful punches but was nowhere near as mobile as a Tyson Fury, and was mediocre at best compared
to other big guys like Joshua, Lennox, Vitali and even Pulev etc.)

Jean Marc Mormeck is a all-time great cruiserweight fighter 'He is a better win, than any Cruiserweight win Oleksandr Uysk has achieved on his resume. Mormeck beat every single fighter for close to a decade, 10 years. The one loss which he did suffer to O'Neil Bell the IBF Champion. He immediately avenged that loss prior to fighting David Haye. Achieving the feat of beating Jean Marc Mormeck at the time which he did? Was a superior win to all of Oleksandr Uysk's best Cruiserweight victories'.

And once more? David Haye beat Jean Marc Mormeck via knockout inside 7 rounds away from home 'David Haye also blasted out Enzo Maccarinelli inside 2 rounds, to become the WBC, WBA, WBO, and Lineal Cruiserweight World Champion. David Haye beat all the premier Cruiserweight Champions of his era, in more conclusive and brutal fashion than Oleksandr Uysk, those are the objective facts of boxing history'.

The only fighter Oleksandr Usyk was able to stop at top level in the Cruiserweight Division 'Was a version of Tony Bellew completely dead at the weight'.

The point I am making is? Oleksandr Uysk as a fighter head to head 'Is not a formidable fighter. He has in my opinion benefited from the opportune time he entered the heavyweight divisions. By the time Uysk entered the heavyweight division. Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder in combination had already cleared out the entire divisions. And they were all arguable outside of their peaks, and definitively in the case of Joshua experiencing a very vulnerable time in his career'.

Fighters who have always historically been great match ups for any fighter in history 'Have all been Champions who were able to separate themselves from their nearest competition. Fighters such as Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, George Foreman are fighters who were able to achieve this feat'.

Oleksandr Uysk has not been that type of fighter 'And that is the truth. In all of his top level fights, against other elite level fighters he has just about edged those fights. Both of his fights vs Tyson Fury I & II and Anthony Joshua I & II were close and competitive fights'.

So theoretically? Oleksandr Uysk if he was matched vs any of the past great heavyweight Champions 'They are all at the very last going to be competitive fights. Because it has been no other way during Uysk's career as a Champion'.

Toney Bellew after fighting two fights vs David Haye I & II at Heavyweight 'Dropped back down into the Cruiserweight Division, and by his own admission was dead at the weight. Bellew as since admitted that in reality? He should have fought Oleksandr Usyk in the heavyweight division'.

Toney Bellew had completely no issue winning rounds vs Oleksandr Uysk 'Two of the judges had Bellew winning on the scorecards, and one judge had it as draw at the time of the stoppage'.

And as I have mentioned before? In 2020 Oleksandr Uysk fought a version of Derek Chisora miles outside of his peak 'Chisora pushed Uysk right to the line. Busted him up real good, and inflicted heavy damage upon Oleksandr Uysk'.

Note: In 2012 David Haye fought Derek Chisora at his absolute peak 'And knocked him out inside 5 rounds'. David Haye who I believe as a Cruiserweight fighter at his peak was a better, more brutal and dangerous fighter than Oleksandr Uysk. David Haye weighing in at 210 pounds vs Derek Chisora 247 pounds. Haye became the first fighter to meet force with force and cancel out Chisora's momentum, being the first fighter to not only deck but knock out Chisora at his near peak as a fighter. Derek Chisora after this fight, would not be decked or knocked out for another 7 years almost. Chisora fought 18 more times, before eventually being legitimately knocked out again by Dillian Whyte in their rematch'.

All of this information in this posts 'Is evidence, which very strongly suggests that Oleksandr Uysk head to head is not a formidable fighter'.

If Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Wladimir Kiltschko, Rocky Marciano 'Where all competing at the same time as Oleksandr Uysk? I don't think their teams and families would be petrified for them to fight Uysk'.

I get it? Oleksandr Uysk is the man in the moment 'He is winning, and that is what I think people struggle to see past in the moment. Oleksandr Uysk beating Daniel Dubois I & II is not an all-time great win, it is a solid win and that is about it. But people in my opinion within the boxing community, are completely overrating the win in terms of historical significance'.

Its is nowhere near the level of Mike Tyson knocking out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds, or Muhammad Ali being the first and only fighter ever in the history if the sport to knock out George Foreman.

To conclude: If Oleksandr Uysk at his absolute peak was competing in the same era and conditions vs Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, Wladimir Kiltschko, Rocky Marciano, Joe Louis or Jack Dempsey 'And many more of the past great heavyweight fighters. The high likely-hood is that all of those fights, are going to be like entering into Dante's Inferno, they all have a very strong chance of beating him in my opinion' etc.

[IceTrayDaGang]

i believe so too..