There has rarely been a shortage of attention surrounding the heavyweight boxing division.
Heavyweights remain boxing’s biggest men, world heavyweight championships still carry a significance that belts in most other divisions struggle to match, and one spectacular knockout can transform a fighter into a major attraction almost overnight.
But strip away the famous names, promotional machinery and world-title belts for a moment and there is an uncomfortable question worth asking.
How good is the heavyweight boxing division actually going to be over the next few years?
Filip Hrgovic is now the IBF heavyweight champion at 34. Daniel Dubois holds the WBO title and is preparing to fight Fabio Wardley again after being dropped twice before eventually stopping him in their first meeting.
Meanwhile, the fighters who have defined heavyweight boxing for much of the past decade are approaching the end.
Oleksandr Usyk cannot continue forever. Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua are no longer long-term answers to the division’s future. Deontay Wilder’s most destructive years are behind him.
There are good heavyweights around.
There are potentially very good ones coming.
What there isn’t, at least yet, is an obvious next great heavyweight.
And that could leave the heavyweight boxing division entering one of its weakest periods in years.
Hrgovic Deserves His Title – But His Victory Also Raised Questions
Filip Hrgovic deserves enormous credit for what he did against Moses Itauma.
This shouldn’t become one of those situations where the winner is almost ignored because everybody wants to talk about what went wrong for the loser.
Hrgovic survived.
He absorbed Itauma’s best work, remained composed while a younger and quicker fighter built a huge lead and was still there when Itauma’s conditioning deserted him.
That matters.
World heavyweight championship fights aren’t six-round contests. Experience, durability, pacing and conditioning are part of being an elite heavyweight, and Hrgovic demonstrated qualities that Itauma simply didn’t have yet.
But look at what actually happened.
A 34-year-old Hrgovic was comprehensively outboxed for much of the contest by a 21-year-old having his first world-title fight. Itauma had never previously been beyond six rounds as a professional and was attempting an enormous jump in level.
When Itauma’s gas tank disappeared, Hrgovic took advantage and stopped him in the ninth.
That’s championship experience.
But does that performance suggest we are watching the beginning of another dominant heavyweight reign?
I don’t think it does.
It tells us Hrgovic is tough, experienced and good enough to expose the weaknesses of an exceptionally talented but inexperienced young fighter.
Those are not insignificant qualities.
They also aren’t necessarily the qualities of the next dominant heavyweight champion.
Moses Itauma Might Still Be the Best Long-Term Bet
The strange thing about Itauma losing is that my opinion of his long-term potential hasn’t particularly changed.
If anything, his defeat might eventually make him a better fighter.
I wrote after the Hrgovic fight about why losing his unbeaten record at 21 could prove to be one of the most valuable things that happens to Itauma:
The weaknesses were obvious.
His pacing wasn’t good enough. His conditioning wasn’t ready for a prolonged world-level heavyweight fight and, once he discovered Hrgovic wasn’t going anywhere, he didn’t appear to have another gear available beyond continuing to spend energy trying to force the stoppage.
But the talent was equally obvious.
For large parts of that fight, Itauma looked quicker, sharper and technically superior to the man who ultimately became IBF champion.
That’s why writing him off would be ridiculous.
He’s 21.
The more interesting question for the heavyweight boxing division is what it says about everybody else when one of its most convincing candidates to become the dominant heavyweight of the future is still several years away from his physical prime and has just lost his first world-title challenge.
Itauma might eventually become the answer.
Right now, he isn’t.
Dubois and Wardley Sum Up the Current Heavyweight Division
Then we have Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley.
Their first fight was entertaining, dramatic and brutal.
It also demonstrated why I’m not convinced either man is ready to become the unquestioned leader of the heavyweight boxing division.
Wardley dropped Dubois twice.
Dubois recovered, gradually took control and stopped Wardley in the eleventh.
They will now do it again at The O2 on 17 October, with Dubois defending the WBO heavyweight title.
There is nothing wrong with that fight.
I’ll watch it.
But there’s a difference between enjoying a heavyweight fight and convincing yourself that the fighters involved are exceptional simply because a world championship is on the line.
Dubois has power, experience and resilience. He has rebuilt his career impressively after difficult defeats and deserves credit for doing so.
Wardley’s rise from white-collar boxing to becoming a heavyweight world champion remains remarkable.
But both have shown significant vulnerabilities.
I recently questioned whether Dubois and Wardley really represent the best British heavyweight boxing has to offer.
That question becomes even more important when we stop looking purely at Britain and start considering the entire division.
If one of them is supposed to become the dominant heavyweight of the post-Usyk era, have we really seen enough to believe they can?
At the moment, I haven’t.
The Usyk Problem
Perhaps the biggest problem facing the heavyweight boxing division is Oleksandr Usyk.
Not because he has damaged it.
Because he has shown us exactly what an exceptional heavyweight looks like.
Usyk moved up from cruiserweight and defeated Anthony Joshua twice. He then beat Tyson Fury twice and established himself as the outstanding heavyweight of his generation.
His technique, footwork, intelligence, conditioning and ability to adapt during fights separated him from everyone around him.
I’ve previously looked at what heavyweight boxing could become once Usyk finally disappears from the picture:
That future is arriving.
And the contrast could be uncomfortable.
When Lennox Lewis retired, heavyweight boxing eventually found Wladimir Klitschko.
When Klitschko’s reign ended, Joshua, Fury and Wilder emerged.
Whatever you think about any of those fighters individually, they gave heavyweight boxing identifiable leading figures.
Joshua became a stadium attraction in Britain.
Wilder developed into one of the most frightening punchers of his generation.
Fury became the man who ended Klitschko’s reign and later produced his extraordinary trilogy with Wilder.
Usyk ultimately proved himself superior to the best of the era.
Who is next?
That’s where the answer becomes much less obvious.
Plenty of Good Heavyweights – But Where Is the Great One?
This isn’t an argument that today’s heavyweights are useless.
They’re not.
That’s far too simplistic.
The heavyweight boxing division has contenders, champions, prospects and potentially excellent fights available.
Agit Kabayel has established himself at world level. Hrgovic is now a champion. Dubois has rebuilt himself. Wardley remains dangerous. Itauma remains enormously talented despite his first defeat.
Others will emerge.
The problem is that being good isn’t the same thing as being great.
We have become so accustomed to championship belts multiplying across boxing that sometimes the existence of a world champion is treated as proof that we are watching an elite fighter.
It isn’t.
A belt tells you somebody won the fights necessary to acquire that belt.
History decides everything else.
Great heavyweight eras aren’t remembered because four sanctioning bodies managed to find four people to hold their championships.
They’re remembered because great fighters emerged and forced everyone else to chase them.
At the moment, I can’t identify that fighter.
Maybe Boxing Has a Bigger Superstar Problem
There is also a wider issue here.
Boxing isn’t simply searching for its next dominant heavyweight. The sport is increasingly searching for fighters capable of becoming genuine mainstream stars.
I’ve written previously about whether boxing is running out of true superstars:
The heavyweight division has historically helped solve that problem.
Heavyweight champions can transcend boxing in a way very few fighters from lighter divisions manage.
Muhammad Ali did.
Mike Tyson did.
Lennox Lewis became one of Britain’s most recognisable sportsmen.
Joshua filled Wembley Stadium.
Fury became a mainstream figure far beyond the traditional boxing audience.
The next era might produce competitive fights without producing anybody with that level of cultural relevance.
Those are two different things.
You can have an entertaining heavyweight boxing division without having a great heavyweight era.
In fact, uncertainty might actually make the division entertaining.
If Hrgovic, Dubois, Wardley, Kabayel and others are relatively evenly matched, we could get competitive world-title fights and championships changing hands regularly.
That could be fun.
But competitive doesn’t automatically mean elite.
Sometimes everybody looks evenly matched because the standard is exceptionally high.
Sometimes everybody looks evenly matched because nobody is significantly better than everybody else.
We don’t yet know which one this generation will become.
Boxing Must Be Careful With Its Young Heavyweights
This is also why Itauma’s development from here matters.
Boxing has developed an unhealthy obsession with unbeaten records and accelerating prospects towards world titles as quickly as possible.
Itauma was attempting to become the second-youngest heavyweight world champion in history.
It made for a brilliant storyline.
But why did he need to?
There is a wider conversation to be had about the way boxing develops prospects and the pressure to move talented fighters rapidly through the rankings:
Heavyweights traditionally develop later than fighters in lighter divisions.
They’re dealing with enormous physical forces, and the difference between dominating over four or six rounds and controlling a 12-round heavyweight championship fight is huge.
Itauma has now discovered that.
The heavyweight boxing division needs its young talent to develop properly rather than desperately trying to manufacture the next superstar before the previous generation disappears.
Because the quickest way to create a weak era would be to ruin the fighters capable of eventually making it strong.
Is This Really the Weakest Heavyweight Era in Years?
It’s probably too early to say definitively.
But the warning signs are there.
The old generation is disappearing faster than the new generation is establishing itself.
Hrgovic is a deserving world champion, but at 34 he’s unlikely to become the face of heavyweight boxing for the next decade.
Dubois has rebuilt his career impressively, but his vulnerabilities remain.
Wardley has massively exceeded expectations, but there are still legitimate questions about his ceiling.
Itauma might possess the greatest long-term potential of all of them, but his defeat to Hrgovic demonstrated how much development remains.
That leaves the heavyweight boxing division in an unusual position.
There are belts.
There are contenders.
There are good fights.
There are talented prospects.
There just isn’t a king.
Perhaps that changes quickly.
Perhaps Itauma rebuilds, develops his conditioning and eventually becomes the heavyweight everybody thought he was going to become before the Hrgovic fight.
Perhaps Dubois continues improving and proves people like me wrong.
Perhaps somebody currently outside the conversation suddenly emerges and takes control.
Heavyweight boxing has reinvented itself before.
But right now, when I look beyond Usyk, Fury, Joshua and Wilder, I don’t see the beginning of another golden generation.
I see a vacuum.
And unless somebody steps forward to fill it, we could be about to discover that having several heavyweight world champions isn’t remotely the same thing as having a great heavyweight boxing division.
What Do You Think?
Is this the weakest heavyweight era we’ve seen in years, or are we simply judging the next generation too harshly because they’ve had to follow Usyk, Fury and Joshua?
Could Moses Itauma still become the dominant heavyweight of the next decade? Is Daniel Dubois better than I’m giving him credit for? Or is the next great heavyweight somebody we aren’t even talking about yet?
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