Welcome to What Does It All Mean, the weekly column where we use the benefit of hindsight to review the in ring action from the weekend that was and update the S8C Top 25 Rankings. We of course begin with Oleksandr Usyk’s big win and all its implications, but we also have an HBO card, a freak show fight in Quebec, and more to take a look at.
I need to start this with a mea culpa. I hope no one put down any money on Murat Gassiev based on my expectation that he’d be able to get to Oleksandr Usyk during the fight. I figured if Mairis Briedis could have the level of success he had in the World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament semifinals, then Gassiev could have the same with more power behind his shots. I did not anticipate the masterclass in footwork that Oleksandr Usyk put on in the ring. Gassiev was hopeless in there to get any offense going. Usyk was able to put on an almost casual performence offensively on his way to sweeping the cards and unifying the cruiserweight division. It was just a sensational, high level pound for pound performance from the Ukrainian in ring artist.
What is left for Oleksandr Usyk at 200 lbs? Most think he moves up and I agree that that probably happens, but I would be fine if one of the three following fights came next at cruiserweight. First, a Mairis Briedis rematch would be good fun. Their semifinal bout remains the only competitive one of Usyk’s career and it was a fun fight to boot. Briedis’s fight on the undercard of Saturday’s main event against a French regional fighter wasn’t fun, but I sort of got the feeling he was told to go out there and go rounds to help fill time before the main event. I’d love to see that rematch. I also have the two men ranked one and two in the division now with Gassiev falling to #3 in defeat.
I’d also be fine with Usyk in with Tony Bellew as has been discussed in the media. Bellew coming back down to try to win the undisputed title would be a nice narrative. Unfortunately I do believe that were this fight to take place, it would happen at heavyweight though. That’s a little less compelling, but honestly I don’t think it happens at all despite the banter. I can’t imagine Eddie Hearn thinks Tony Bellew would win that fight and he’d likely make more money cashing him out as a heavyweight against one of the bigger British names. Finally, there is Andre Ward. Do I think the former top pound for pound fighter is coming out of retirement to face Oleksandr Usyk? Certainly not. Yet, if he does come out of retirement for something, it will be to chase a third title up at cruiserweight. It likely would be to try to cherry pick an easier one in my view, but I do think the allure of all four belts might speak to Andre. If I was Usyk’s camp, I’d at least reach out.
Also at cruiserweight, Denis Lebedev timed out of the rankings with a year’s inactivity and without a fight scheduled. The 38 year old longtime top cruiserweight would be a fresh matchup for Usyk too for what that is worth, though not all that exciting of one as I don’t see that as a competitive matchup. Regardless of who Oleksandr fights, and I do expect him to move up to heavyweight here, sign me up to watch. I think he’s a nightmare for absolutely anyone at heavyweight with his footwork in there. He’d turn and turn both Joshua and Wilder. Could he avoid the power for 12 rounds? Well, that would be the narrative question going in, but there is no doubt in my mind he’d win the majority of the rounds in the ring with them until we found out the answer. Oleksandr Usyk is that good.
We also had a low key HBO guest appearance this weekend. In the main event, young Mexican slugger Jaime Munguia successfully made the first defense of his junior middleweight title over Liam Smith. In this fight Munguia showed a lot of the weaknesses I wrote that we’d see going into his big win over Sadam Ali but didn’t due to the massive size differential. Liam Smith, a true junior middleweight, was able to land a lot of clean work, especially early. Munguia’s raw strength and power was able to overcome and overwhelm the British challenger over twelve rounds, but for the first half of the fight it was exciting and competitive stuff. Still, the fight validated the still only 21 year old Munguia as a real top fighter at 154 pounds and I moved him into the top ten at number seven. Liam Smith, who was game as game could be in this one despite being hurt and dropped in the sixth, fell only one spot to number eight. Also in action was number five junior lightweight Alberto Machado in the co-feature. The Puerto Rican titleholder also dropped and outpointed his challenger, but Ghanaian unknown mandatory Rafael Mensah was such a low level opponent that it is pretty meaningless in terms of the rankings.
Back to the Usyk-Gassiev show, we had a pretty terrible robbery on the undercard. Previously thirteenth ranked Fedor Chudinov was cleanly outboxed by unranked Frenchmen Nadjib Mohammedi at home in Russia, but hometown cards came in for Chudinov despite what happened in the ring. It was a poor look for the sport, one we see all too often. ShoBox had a similar result stateside this weekend too in fairness to Russia, but one beneath the purview of this rankings update. Regardless of the official outcome, I updated the rankings to reflect what I saw in the ring. Chudinov plummeted from thirteenth to #20 while Mohammedi came into the rankings one spot ahead at #19.
That’s mostly it for the weekend. Jean Pascal did win a freak show fight over former mid level UFC fighter Steve Bosse in Bosse’s second career boxing match, but am I to do with that other than update his record and move on? I’m not even going to bother to rank Pascal at cruiserweight unless he takes another fight there. #25 middleweight Yamaguchi Falcao also picked up a win this weekend, as did Denis Shafikov who remains double ranked at both full and junior lightweight until I figure out where he intends on fighting in bigger contests. He is #13 in both divisions still.
