By Eóin Kennedy
One of the most enjoyable and engaging arguments fans of any sport can have is, who is the greatest of all time. Whether it’s singing the praises of Wayne Gretzky in hockey or staunchly fighting Lionel Messi’s corner over Pele or Cristiano Ronaldo in soccer, it’s a debate that’s always fun and usually inconclusive. It is a subjective topic after all, and boxing is no different to any other sport in that regard. Ask one fan who the king of the sweet science is and they’ll tell you it’s Sugar Ray Robinson, the next will shout Muhammed Ali while a third may say Roy Jones Jr. All are legitimate answers which can be argued but none can be proven, that’s just the nature of sport. All any boxer, or sportsperson for that matter, can hope for is to beat all available opposition in front of them and reign supreme as the greatest among their peers in their own era. In prevailing over Tyson Fury for the second time in last week’s rematch in Saudi Arabia, Oleksandr Usyk stood head and shoulders above all his contemporaries as the true, ruling king among the current generation of heavyweight fighters.
Ukraine’s Usyk already won the triple crown of major amateur boxing medals having obtained Olympic, World and European gold in the unpaid ranks of the sport, so his expectations as a professional were lofty to say the least, but what he has achieved since jumping from cruiserweight to heavyweight has been simply extraordinary. Widely feared to be too small to mix with the biggest men in the boxing and after a bumpy introduction to the maximum weight class with uninspiring wins over Chazz Witherspoon and Dereck Chisora, throwing down with the likes of Fury and Anthony Joshua looked like it was going to be a tall task for the much naturally smaller fighter. In now having defeated both Fury and Joshua twice and with a win over their compatriot and current IBF heavyweight world champion, Daniel Dubois, thrown in for good measure, it would be absurd to suggest anyone other than Usyk as the man who ruled supreme in this era of heavyweight boxing. The only other fighter that was a staple at the top of the division throughout the last ten years and that Usyk hasn’t faced is Deontay Wilder. Yes, Wilder was a ferocious puncher but by the time Usyk had transitioned to heavyweight boxing and found his feet in the division, he was jumping straight into back to back fights with Joshua, followed by that title defense against Dubois which was quickly chased down with the double-header with Fury; so it’s not like Usyk could ever be accused of avoiding Wilder, he was busy fighting the other champions. It’s only now that the Ukrainian’s schedule is free at long last, and Wilder is beyond damaged goods.
That segways nicely into how history will view the other big players of the current era as father time will start beginning to call time on their careers one by one. For Wilder, it may be over already. The former WBC world champion has given boxing some great nights, but he has only won one fight since 2019 and given that we’re on the cusp of 2025, that’s a sobering thought. The second and third fights with Fury truly took something out of Wilder that will probably never be recaptured or repaired. Those fights were brutal affairs. Despite racking up losses, Wilder still brings enough name value and potential for explosive knockouts that he’ll still be able to attract big paydays and who knows, maybe Turki Al Sheikh will offer him a giant cheque to be the final challenge and puzzle piece for Usyk. Time will tell.
The man that irrevocably changed Wilder’s career by knocking him out twice, Fury, will himself be tormented by the fact that his status as the top-dog among the pack has been acquired from him. It’s unlikely that the former two-time world champion will relent in his pursuit of a trilogy with Usyk though. Given both fights between the men have gone the distance, with the rematch being particularly close, there will be plenty of appetite from Fury to extract sweet revenge and the fans are likely to get onboard again if the fight gets made. Where Usyk’s head is at regarding a trilogy with Fury remains to be seen but with the current score at 2-0 in his favour, he may be the one to say that he is ready to move on to other challenges. Should he do so, I’d imagine Tyson Fury will be very upset, especially because it would cement his place in history as the second-best heavyweight boxer of this era, without further chance for redemption.
Another former two-time heavyweight world champion, Anthony Joshua, probably has the most complex legacy to figure out among the current crop of fighters. Catapulted into the limelight from the London 2012 Olympics where he won gold, Joshua was the chosen one. British boxing had its star for the early part of the 21st century and with Matchroom mouthpiece Eddie Hearn coming of age as a promoter and Sky Sports investing heavily in boxing, and Joshua in particular, lightning was caught in a bottle. Hearn moved Joshua very shrewdly through the various governing body’s ranking systems ultimately earning him a world title shot in his seventeenth professional fight against lame duck champion, Charles Martin. Joshua became a world champion that night which did wonders for his bank balance and global brand but as a fighter it came too soon perhaps. He was a late starter in boxing and still to this day fights like a man trying to memorize what has been explained to him rather than operating on instinct. Maybe his legacy in the sport will largely be that he was disgruntled by the fact he didn’t get the respect he deserved. His emotional rant after the first Usyk loss and the frequent and almost bizarre switch in personality from good guy to bad always were the actions of a man that was irritated that Usyk and Fury were seen as geniuses by boxing pundits, while Andy Ruiz Jr, Usyk twice and Daniel Dubois have all figured out ways to make him look ordinary. Joshua’s legacy in the sport will be more tied to being one of the all-time great brands of boxing rather than his in-ring exploits. The nights he headlined in London are legendary but that’s as much for the fight night experience as the boxing. A Joshua fight was an event that was bigger than the fight itself and regardless of whether he was inferior to his main rivals, he was still the biggest box office draw regardless. It will likely irk him that his career best win against Wladimir Klitschko came after Fury had already dethroned him two years earlier, but that victory is still an undoubted career highlight for Joshua, despite it being Klitschko’s final fight.
As for the rest of today’s top heavyweights, Englishman, Dubois, currently holds one of the four iterations of the world championship and as just a 27-year-old, his story is still being written. He’s tried his luck against Uysk once already and come up short but since the victory over Joshua, he seems to have transformed into a trash talking egomaniac. Perhaps his new persona may have better luck. Andy Ruiz Jr will always be remembered for scoring one of boxing’s most shocking upsets when he knocked out Joshua in Madison Square Garden, New York, but sadly his career never kicked on from there and looks like it’s going to peter out. Joseph Parker is enjoying an Indian summer in his career under the tutelage of Irishman Andy Lee and the Kiwi fighter will challenge Dubois for his IBF world title in February 2025. Parker has been a world champion once and should he topple Dubois and proceed to shock the world and beat Usyk it would really put the cat among the pigeons when trying to critique this generation of heavyweights.
There are still massive fights to be made between this crop of boxers, but the cold hard truth also is that there’s more road behind them all than in front in terms of their professional boxing careers. Fury will probably push as hard as he can for another crack at Usyk but may have to settle for what is now a much-devalued fight against Anthony Joshua. Never seeing Fury vs Joshua in Wembley Stadium when one, or both, of the Englishmen, were world champions seems like a sporting travesty. The exact same thing can be said for Joshua vs Wilder. At one point both of those men were undefeated world champions, and both were knocking opponents out for fun but much like Fury vs Joshua, we’ve still never seen the fight and even if we do, what does it really matter now? Let’s see how the twilight of this heavyweight cohort’s careers plays out. It’s been a fun ride watch, it’s just a shame the promoters had to wait for Al Sheikh to come along and pay them to put their egos aside and get the big fights made.