{"id":432765,"date":"2026-02-18T19:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432765\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T19:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:00:08","slug":"heavyweight-legend-wishes-he-was-boxing-in-this-era-i-can-figure-usyk-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/432765\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavyweight legend ‘wishes’ he was boxing in this era: “I can figure Usyk out”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> has solidified his status as the best heavyweight of this era but there is one former champion that is confident he would have \u2018figured out\u2019 the Ukrainian mastermind.<\/p>\n

Usyk became the second fighter in boxing history to become an undisputed champion at both cruiserweight and heavyweight, joining Evander Holyfield<\/a> in that elite club by handing Tyson Fury <\/a>a first career defeat back in May 2024.<\/p>\n

Since then, Usyk secured another win over \u2018The Gypsy King\u2019 and he then became a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion by halting Daniel Dubois for a second time<\/a>, before revealing plans to fight for another two years.<\/p>\n

However, whilst full of praise for Usyk, three-time heavyweight ruler Lennox Lewis<\/a> told iFL TV<\/a> that he believes that he would have figured the now 39-year-old out, if he had been competing in this era rather than in the talent-littered 1990\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish that I was in this era to box, because I would have loved to box him. I can\u2019t see why nobody can\u2019t figure him out, I would have been able to figure him out.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsyk is the best of this era and he does the right things. He moves well, he doesn\u2019t get hit and he is elusive and he is hard to beat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lewis defeated every opponent he ever faced, avenging his two career defeats to both Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman<\/a> to become boxing\u2019s second three-time heavyweight champion, after Muhammad Ali \u2013 a feat which has since been replicated by Vitali Klitschko and Evander Holyfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk has solidified his status as the best heavyweight of this era but there is one former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-432765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}