{"id":707385,"date":"2026-07-23T16:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T16:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707385\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T16:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T16:48:09","slug":"hasim-rahman-delivers-honest-verdict-on-whether-oleksandr-usyk-would-have-thrived-in-his-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/707385\/","title":{"rendered":"Hasim Rahman delivers honest verdict on whether Oleksandr Usyk would have thrived in his era"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman has considered where Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> sits in the \u201cGOAT\u201d conversation, among the likes of Muhammad Ali<\/a> and Lennox Lewis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Based on achievements alone, Usyk deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as any former heavyweight champion, given that he has cemented himself as the greatest of his generation.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but the Ukrainian moved up from cruiserweight to become a two-division undisputed champion, defeating the most formidable fighters he could realistically face.<\/p>\n

In particular, his two points victories over Tyson Fury in 2024 were significant enough to draw comparisons with all-time greats such as Lewis, who was the previous undisputed heavyweight king.<\/p>\n

Many will argue, however, that Ali and Lewis both competed with tougher opponents, meaning they should be placed above Usyk on any \u2018GOAT\u2019 list.<\/p>\n

For Ali, it were his fights with Joe Frazier and George Foreman that largely defined his career, while Lewis\u2019 most significant win came against Evander Holyfield in 1999.<\/p>\n

Even after having shared the ring with Lewis<\/a>, though, Rahman has told FightHype<\/a> that he still considers Usyk to be one of the all-time greats.<\/p>\n

\u201c[He] won the [Fury rematch] clean and went on to show why he\u2019s one of the greatest heavyweight champions ever. I put him in the \u2018greatest of all time\u2019 category.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on statistics, and what he\u2019s done, I don\u2019t see nobody who matches him. All I know is that Usyk won [an Olympic] gold medal, was the only one to unify four cruiserweight titles and then moved up to heavyweight and unified four heavyweight titles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s never been done [before]. He\u2019s got to be in that \u2018GOAT\u2019 conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rahman, who found himself on both sides of stoppages against Lewis in 2001, went on to highlight that, by dethroning Anthony Joshua<\/a>, Usyk defeated his fellow Olympic champion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman has considered where Oleksandr Usyk sits in the \u201cGOAT\u201d conversation, among the likes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-707385","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\/707385","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=707385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}