{"id":598901,"date":"2026-05-23T00:17:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/598901\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T00:17:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T00:17:07","slug":"david-haye-rates-usyks-chances-against-heavyweight-greats-like-lewis-holyfield-and-tyson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/598901\/","title":{"rendered":"David Haye rates Usyk’s chances against heavyweight greats like Lewis, Holyfield and Tyson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> has cleaned up at both cruiserweight and heavyweight. Now, one of just two other men to have ruled in both divisions, David Haye<\/a>, has shared how he thinks the Ukrainian would have fared against heavyweight icons.<\/p>\n

Usyk got his hands on the undisputed cruiserweight crown by scoring away wins over each of Krzysztof Glowacki, Mairis Briedis and Murat Gassiev<\/a> to capture all four world titles.<\/p>\n

It is his current heavyweight run that made Usyk a global superstar, twice defeating each of Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Daniel Dubois to become a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion.<\/p>\n

As a result, the undefeated 39-year-old has established himself as the standout heavyweight of this generation, and when asked whether Usyk could have performed similarly in a stronger era, such as the 1990s, Haye told BoxingScene<\/a> that he believes the Ukrainian \u2018would have found a way\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsyk, putting them in there with [Evander] Holyfield, [Mike] Tyson, Lennox [Lewis], he would have hung with the best of them,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would have found a way. He\u2019s shown consistently that he\u2019s beat every man in and around his era that. It\u2019s hard not to be a fan of someone who\u2019s done that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019d be the equivalent of me beating Tyson Fury, Wladimir Klitschko, Vitali Klitschko and anyone else.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Usyk takes on Dutch kickboxer Rico Verhoeven on Saturday night<\/a> at the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, in a bout that may do more for his celebrity than his legacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk has cleaned up at both cruiserweight and heavyweight. Now, one of just two other men to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-598901","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\/598901","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=598901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}