{"id":703461,"date":"2026-07-21T14:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/703461\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T14:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T14:10:10","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-names-the-top-3-fighters-of-his-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/703461\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk names the top 3 fighters of his generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> believes three fighters should be considered as the leading operators of his generation, spanning from around 2016 to present day.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian claimed his first world title just under a decade ago, dethroning Krzysztof Glowacki for the WBO cruiserweight strap before entering the pound-for-pound discussion in 2018.<\/p>\n

During that year, Usyk cemented his cruiserweight greatness with victories over Mairis Briedis and Murat Gassiev, becoming the division\u2019s undisputed king.<\/p>\n

Then, around two years later, the masterful southpaw dethroned Anthony Joshua<\/a> and eventually secured his undisputed triumph over Tyson Fury<\/a> in 2024.<\/p>\n

Having unified every major title across two divisions, Usyk is now rightfully considered the flagship cruiserweight and heavyweight of his generation.<\/p>\n

In terms of the pound-for-pound debate, though, the 39-year-old has been gracious enough to put himself beneath Terence Crawford<\/a>, Canelo Alvarez<\/a> and Shakur Stevenson<\/a> while speaking with FightHype<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Canelo was generally regarded as the sport\u2019s top fighter in 2019, around a year after he won a majority decision against Gennady Golovkin<\/a> in their middleweight rematch.<\/p>\n

The Mexican then became the undisputed super-middleweight king, dethroning the likes of Billy Joe Saunders and Caleb Plant, before losing to Dmitry Bivol in 2022.<\/p>\n

After that it was Crawford, along with Usyk, who arguably became known as the top dog, especially following his undisputed victory over Errol Spence Jr<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n

As for Stevenson, it is perhaps harder to justify his place among this generation\u2019s greatest fighters, despite him having already become a four-division world champion.<\/p>\n

Still, the unbeaten 29-year-old is crafting a Hall of Fame career, while Crawford has stepped into retirement and Canelo appears close to doing so himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk believes three fighters should be considered as the leading operators of his generation, spanning from around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-703461","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\/703461","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=703461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}