The heavyweight champion—a title determined by a jumble of acronyms but above all of them—is now the division’s best fighter. Such a distinction seems nonsense, a useless tautology, at least when applied to welterweight or super bantamweight. But the heavyweight division has lacked such clarity since the reign of Lennox Lewis (Remember: there were first two Klitschkos and then one, and that one ruled a division so moribund he could hold territory in retreat). What Usyk has done in scalping Anthony Joshua and Fury is put those fighters who owe their success primarily to winning a genetic lottery in their place. The super heavyweights, men so enormous as to prompt discussion about adding a division exclusive to such monsters, are finally looking up—at a six-foot-three 230-pound former cruiserweight with only fourteen knockouts in twenty-two fights.
Read Moment of Clarity: Oleksandr Usyk is Heavyweight Champion on Hannibal Boxing.
In Between Rounds 