Lost in the hoopla that surrounded Manny Pacquiao\u2019s comeback fight against Mario Barrios was the exemplary performance of probably one of the greatest fighters of all time.<\/p>\n
Since they fought on the same weekend, Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s rematch with Daniel Dubois (25-3, 21KOs) was relegated a bit to the background in the prime US market since the fight took place at the Wembley Stadium in London \u2013 but in terms of signifance this certainly had more gravitas- literally in terms of weight, and also in stature.<\/p>\n
USYK. The undefeated Ukranian was after all, defending all four heavyweight crowns against Frenchman and one-time victim Daniel Dubois.<\/p>\n
In their previous match, Usyk stopped Dubois in the 9th round, but there was apparently some controversy that attended the fight as Dubois had landed a body shot (ruled to be low) that knocked down Usyk (24-0, 15KOs), but to some was landed legally on the beltline.<\/p>\n
Had it been ruled as such, Dubois would have won via stoppage as Usyk had been down for more than 10 seconds.<\/p>\n
THE FIGHT. It wasnt much of one, actually. From the opening bell, Dubois was the aggressor and brought the fight to the defending champion. But Usyk responded well, countering Dubois beautifully during exchanges. <\/p>\n
In the 5th round, Usyk dropped Dubois with a short right to the temple. The challenger got up wobbly at the count of 8 but a few seconds later Usyk landed a left hook that proved to be the coup de grace.<\/p>\n
GOAT? This is a fighter who unified all the cruiserweight belts and all the heavyweight belts. His list of victims reads like a Hall-fame-roster: Marco Huck, Tony Bellew, Derek Chisora, Anthony Joshua, Dubois, Tyson Fury.<\/p>\n
But why isn\u2019t his name often mentioned and revered alongside the all-time greats? It\u2019s probably because he isn\u2019t loud and loquacious like Fury and he doesn\u2019t speak English quite eloquently so he can\u2019t readily assume the role as the sport\u2019s flagship fighter.<\/p>\n
His fighting style is also quite subdued as he prefers to break down his opponents quietly and systematically behind a sharpshooting, southpaw stance.<\/p>\n
But make no mistake, Usyk is right now the baddest man in boxing.<\/p>\n
Time will be the best judge of how he ranks among the all-time greats, but his feat of becoming the first man to unify all the belts at cruiserweight and heavyweight will make a strong case for him when we discuss the greatest of all time.<\/p>\n
LAST ROUND. It\u2019s on a good friend, the ever prolific Nathaniel \u201cTata\u201d Go who recently celebrated his birthday. Cheers! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lost in the hoopla that surrounded Manny Pacquiao\u2019s comeback fight against Mario Barrios was the exemplary performance of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-56945","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\/56945","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=56945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}