{"id":725833,"date":"2026-08-03T10:37:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T10:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/725833\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T10:37:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T10:37:07","slug":"tony-bellew-says-only-one-man-tops-usyk-and-sugar-ray-leonard-as-most-complete-fighter-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/725833\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Bellew says only one man tops Usyk and Sugar Ray Leonard as most complete fighter of all time"},"content":{"rendered":"

While hailing the skillsets of Oleksandr Usyk and Sugar Ray Leonard, Tony Bellew has suggested that neither fighter can compare to one of their fellow all-time greats.<\/p>\n

When considering the most complete fighters in history, Usyk and Leonard certainly deserve a mention based on their signature performances and achievements.<\/p>\n

Usyk, after all, became a two-division undisputed champion while cementing himself as the greatest heavyweight of his era by defeating Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.<\/p>\n

As for Leonard, his victories over Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler \u2013 his fellow Four Kings \u2013 offer sufficient evidence to place him on any all-time pound-for-pound list.<\/p>\n

That said, former cruiserweight champion Bellew believes that a prime Roy Jones Jr trumps any fighter for skill and athleticism.<\/p>\n

The American claimed his IBF middleweight title by defeating the great Bernard Hopkins in 1993, before securing further wins over the likes of James Toney and Mike McCallum.<\/p>\n

Jones then moved up to heavyweight after becoming a three-division world champion, dethroning John Ruiz for the WBA crown<\/a> in 2003.<\/p>\n

Based on this portion of his career, Bellew has told Playbook Boxing<\/a> that he believes Jones is the most complete fighter of all time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only one, I believe, who\u2019s ever completed every task and been brilliant in all parts of his game was a prime Roy Jones Jr.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Oleksandr Usyk pushes him very close; I think the likes of Sugar Ray Leonard push him very close. But there\u2019s little attributes that they fall [short] on.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoy Jones Jr \u2013 I\u2019ve never seen [no one] like [him]. If Roy Jones Jr walked away after defeating John Ruiz, nobody would even question what I\u2019m saying.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve only ever seen one fighter drop [back] down [in weight] and be right and healthy, and that was Floyd Mayweather.\u201d<\/p>\n

After defeating Ruiz, Jones moved back down to 175lbs and edged a majority decision against Antonio Tarver<\/a>, before suffering a second-round stoppage defeat in their immediate rematch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While hailing the skillsets of Oleksandr Usyk and Sugar Ray Leonard, Tony Bellew has suggested that neither fighter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-725833","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\/725833","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=725833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}