Two retired greats got picked apart this week by people who never had to fight them.
Oleksandr Usyk was asked by Daily Mail Boxing who could have beaten Floyd Mayweather and did not hesitate. He named Terence Crawford, and said Crawford would also have beaten Sugar Ray Leonard, Pernell Whitaker and Sugar Ray Robinson.
It is a heavy list to put one man above. Mayweather retired 50-0 and was pushed properly perhaps twice, by Jose Luis Castillo in 2002, when plenty thought he lost, and by Marcos Maidana in 2014, when he won a majority decision. He beat both in rematches.
Crawford has the résumé to make the argument arguable rather than absurd. He retired unbeaten as a five-division champion after taking the undisputed super middleweight titles off Canelo Alvarez last September, and was arguably at his most complete at welterweight, where he stopped Errol Spence Jr in the ninth to become undisputed in 2023.
Tony Bellew went in a different direction on Fight Your Corner, picking Carl Froch to beat Alvarez.
Canelo’s very good, he’s just small. That’s the only thing. Carl’s big. Frochy was a bit of an animal, to be fair. You know, 100 percent, Frochy’s walking you down. And I’m not sure how Canelo would deal with that.
He was not dismissive of what Alvarez brings.
I think he’s probably got one of the best chins I’ve ever seen in my life, Canelo. I’ve never even seen him badly hurt. I’ve seen him buzzed, but I’ve never seen his legs shudder.
But, like I said, I think Froch might be too big and just outwork him. I’m going to go Froch on points, but what a fight that would have been.
The evidence against Bellew is the Gennady Golovkin series. Alvarez took 24 rounds from one of the division’s hardest punchers across a draw and a majority decision win, and was never in danger of being stopped in either.
Froch retired in 2014 having built a career on the same durability, most famously getting off the floor to stop Jermain Taylor in the twelfth in 2009. Alvarez is still active and challenges Christian Mbilli on October 31.
