Evander Holyfield was, for a time, the only man to hold all the belts at cruiserweight before doing the same at heavyweight.
An aggressive boxer-puncher with incredible grit, ‘The Real Deal’ scored wins over the likes of Dwight Muhammad Qawi, Mike Tyson, Buster Douglas and George Foreman in his campaign, which ended with 44 wins from 57 fights including 11 world title wins and 11 successful defences.
Speaking to Boxing Social about today’s heavyweight scene, Holyfield was candid in his assessment of Oleksandr Usyk and said he would have been a difficult fight for him.
“He’s a boxer too and it’d probably have been difficult for me because my whole thing is that I was real good with guys that were bullies, guys that were aggressive. I handled very aggressive fighters real well, it’s just boxers. I was a boxer, so I could beat them cause they fought my game-plan. If you ever want to know a guy that would give a guy a problem, find somebody just like him. People who weren’t aggressive were difficult.”
As fantasy match-ups go there aren’t many more technical and intriguing, made more appealing by the fact that this year Usyk joined Holyfield in that extremely exclusive club of being undisputed at both cruiser and heavyweight.
Usyk’s run through a tough 200lbs division before beating the likes of Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury to become four-belt champion has him atop many pound-for-pound lists, his incredible movement, gas tank and ability to adapt all joys to witness.
He rematches Fury on December 21 – this time just for three of the four belts after vacating the IBF – and may consider retiring undefeated should he do the double.
