{"id":533804,"date":"2026-03-13T14:00:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/533804\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T14:00:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:00:07","slug":"mike-tyson-answers-whether-oleksandr-usyk-could-have-competed-in-his-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/533804\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Tyson answers whether Oleksandr Usyk could have competed in his era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Tyson<\/a> has offered his take on whether Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> would have competed with the \u201cwarhorses\u201d of his era, including the likes of Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis.<\/p>\n

The 1990\u2019s was brimming with heavyweight talent, with \u2018Iron Mike\u2019 becoming a two-time world champion after suffering a shock defeat to James \u2018Buster\u2019 Douglas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result of his stoppage victory over Frank Bruno in \u201996, Tyson was then made a sizable favourite ahead of his clash with Holyfield later that year.<\/p>\n

It was therefore considered an almighty upset when \u2018The Real Deal\u2019 stopped his man in round 11<\/a>, before winning their immediate rematch by fourth-round disqualification.<\/p>\n

Holyfield then went on to face Lewis, who unanimously outpointed the American in 1999 after the pair boxed to a controversial draw earlier that year.<\/p>\n

And so, given their prolific activity and never-say-die attitudes, Tyson feels that his era was drastically different to the current generation of heavyweight boxing.<\/p>\n

Because of this, he has told Ring Magazine<\/a> that Usyk would have had a tough time with the likes of himself, Holyfield and Lewis, but admits the Ukrainian would make for a compelling fight against a prime Holyfield, in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cHolyfield would have [given] him a great fight. That\u2019s a different era \u2013 you\u2019ve got to kill those guys to beat them. It\u2019s hard to beat these guys without getting a scratch on your face.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fighters in this era should know that we\u2019re different fighters. We were more active than they are. These guys were defending their title four times a year, in my era.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese guys [in this era] are defending their title once every two years. The guys in my era were warhorses \u2013 they fought to the finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

While we will never know how Usyk would have fared in the 90s, it could be said with far more certainty that he has established himself as the greatest heavyweight of this era.<\/p>\n

With two victories over Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois, respectively, as well as his accolades at 200lbs, there is no denying the 39-year-old\u2019s supremacy across two weight divisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Tyson has offered his take on whether Oleksandr Usyk would have competed with the \u201cwarhorses\u201d of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533805,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-533804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}