The Beltline: What happened to the twentysomething heavyweights?

Much of what makes ageing so cruel is that it happens so gradually, the damage done in increments largely imperceptible until suddenly it is all you see. If it’s not something you see in yourself, it will be something you see in those around you, maybe peers or parents, and if it’s not something you see, it will be something you inevitably feel. However it arrives, though, rest assured that it is happening and that there is nothing we can do to delay, much less stop, its unrelenting march. 

Pay attention to the creeping of time and it may feel as though it goes a little slower. Ignore it, however, and everything speeds up. Young men quickly become old men. Hindsight becomes both an enemy and friend. 

In boxing, one minute fans were ushering the ageing Klitschkos towards the exit door in order to make room for the new batch of heavyweights and the next that new batch were all in their mid or late thirties, with one or two considered “done”. Yeah, just like that. 

We tell ourselves it happened in the blink of an eye, but then we remember that next year marks the 10-year anniversary of Tyson Fury dethroning Wladimir Klitschko in Düsseldorf. In other words, time has passed, heavyweights have come and gone, and we have all grown a little older. 

We have, during this period, been treated to some excellent matchups involving heavyweights, some so good that time momentarily stood still. We have also been forced to wait, just as they have, for fights we wanted to see only for them to never materialise. It was then that time appeared to drag. It was then that we feared certain heavyweights were wasting their best years, a concern exacerbated by a global pandemic, which for many heavyweights wiped away at least a year from their career.

Now we see a fighter like Daniel Dubois, a relative infant at 27, and we marvel at how well he has progressed and how much time he still has at his disposal. We look at what he did to Anthony Joshua on Saturday (September 21) and suddenly see in Joshua, the beaten man, an “old”, fading fighter, someone who had his time and is now unable to function as before; someone apparently scarred, more mentally than physically, by all the sport has done to him since turning pro in 2013.

At 34, Joshua is far from an old man, but he is moving towards the age at which wear and tear becomes a certainty, particularly at heavyweight where the punches are tougher to forget. He is also now eight and a half years removed from the night he beat Charles Martin to win the IBF heavyweight belt – the same belt he failed to recapture against Dubois at Wembley – and eight and half years, whether in boxing terms or life terms, still represents almost a decade. In that time there have been other fights, other wins, and a total of four defeats. There have been training camps, countless rounds of sparring, and even at rest Joshua has been fighting; fighting to control his emotions, fighting fear, fighting the temptation to think about his next opponent. Physically or emotionally, 10 years a fighter takes its toll. 

It’s the same for Joshua’s rivals, too. Oleksandr Usyk, for example, someone who has twice beaten Joshua and is largely responsible for the Londoner’s demons, is now 37. He has boxed just 22 times as a pro, which suggests there is more to come, yet it would be remiss of anyone not to acknowledge that Usyk also had hundreds of amateur bouts before turning pro and is therefore a man with not too much grip left on his tyres. That he presently shows no sign of deterioration is a testament to his skill level, his ring IQ, and his ability to outthink opponents and take a fight beyond the realm of it being just a physical confrontation. However, make no mistake, a 37-year-old, even at heavyweight, will not have too many big nights left and will, for as long as they continue fighting, forever be asking themselves, “Will this be the night Father Time touches my shoulder?”

Because that’s the other scary thing about ageing, you see: there is no time put on anything, nor a shared, universal experience of what is taking place. Usyk, for instance, could be a bit of a freak and end up going on longer than most expect. Who knows? On the other hand, you have Tyson Fury, Usyk’s next opponent, who some feel is already showing signs of age; his own fight against Father Time impacted by the self-destructive periods during which Fury was unsure whether he wanted to age at all. Now 36, Fury is still a young man, relatively speaking, yet has damaged himself physically in ways that have aged him in an athletic sense. Some believe we saw signs of this against Francis Ngannou last year, while others will say it is the reason he struggled to build on a good period against Usyk in May. 

Only Fury will know how he feels, physically and mentally, and only Father Time knows when his tap on the shoulder will ultimately come. Until then, we must appreciate the fact that Usyk and Fury, 37 and 36 respectively, remain the two best heavyweights in the world. We should also accept that beneath them are a group of other thirtysomethings for whom time really is of the essence. 

Among them, and aside from Joshua (34), we have 41-year-old Zhilei Zhang, arguably the division’s hardest puncher, and we have Joseph Parker, now 32 years of age and a battle-hardened contender. Then you have fighters like Martin Bakole, 32, and Agit Kabayel, also 32, both of whom are currently riding high but need a big fight, and soon, to really emerge at the forefront. 

For some heavyweights there is still no end in sight. Deontay Wilder, for one, will probably fight again at the age of 39, and on December 7, Mahmoud Charr, at 40, will meet Kubrat Pulev, now 43, in Bulgaria for the WBA “regular” title in a fight nobody needs to either see or experience. If that’s not enough, there is talk, too, that Fres Oquendo, a name synonymous with that WBA trinket, maintains an interest in returning to the ring having not boxed since 2014. Oquendo, by the way, is now 51. 

Still, that makes Oquendo seven years younger than Mike Tyson, who, although retired since 2005, “boxes” Jake Paul on November 15. That is an “exhibition” by all accounts, though even that description is perhaps too kind. Instead, it is better to compare it with the kind of lies a nurse in a care home might tell their patient in order to get them through the day. “Yes, that’s right,” they tell this patient as they feed them. “You are still a big, bad heavyweight boxer.”

With it happening, the only hope left is that it is the last time we see Tyson anywhere near a boxing ring and that Tyson, for his part, is able to remember in years to come the time when he used to prowl boxing rings so ferociously throughout the eighties and nineties. Indeed, to now recall that period in boxing history is to marvel at how much Tyson achieved at such a young age, winning the world heavyweight title at just 20. It also shines a light on how things have changed. After all, by today’s standards, a boxer of that age wouldn’t even be done building their record against journeymen, never mind fighting the best the division has to offer. At heavyweight especially, they would be told they have all the time in the world and that there is no need to rush. The only thing touching their shoulder would be the protective arm of a trainer or manager eager to preserve both their unbeaten record and their youthful ignorance. 

For Tyson, however, there was no such protection. He, for better or worse, achieved all he was going to achieve at a time and at an age when he was too young to appreciate the magnitude of it and too young to cope with all that came along with it. As a result, he became both an icon and a cautionary tale. 

Perhaps because of this we today see a reluctance on the part of trainers and managers to push their heavyweights so soon, which is why someone like Moses Itauma, a 19-year-old Brit who claims to be chasing Tyson’s record (of being the youngest heavyweight champion), tends to stand out. Itauma, as well as being immensely talented, is at odds with the rest of the division. He is 10-0 and already stepping up in class, appearing to see his age not as a hindrance, or excuse to hover over the brakes, but instead as something liberating and a reason to move at breakneck speed. He, like Tyson, is backing himself and simultaneously bucking a trend. While others wait and wait, and often see opportunities go to waste as a result, Itauma has looked at what is out there and decided, even as a teenager, that he has what it takes to muscle his way through them and reach the top. 

By the time he does all the aforementioned fighters will be gone. Only Daniel Dubois, in fact, (and maybe Fres Oquendo) will still be around. Other twentysomethings are currently few and far between, you see, with just Fabio Wardley, 29, and Jared Anderson, 24, falling into that bracket in and around the upper echelons of the division. (Wardley, of course, was held to a draw by Frazer Clarke in March, while Anderson succumbed to the incessant pressure and unconventional combinations of Martin Bakole in August.) 

Whether this speaks to a lack of talent coming through, or simply suggests fighters are now maturing later as a result of new-age training and better diets, is up for debate. But most fighters will tell you that there were certain things they could do in their twenties that didn’t come as easily to them in their thirties and that the longer you leave it the more likely it is that the magic goes missing when you most need it. 

“I don’t know how I got to write those songs,” said Bob Dylan in a famous interview with 60 Minutes. “Those early songs were almost magically written.

“Try to sit down and write something like that,” he said, having just recited lyrics from his song It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding). “There’s a magic to that. It’s not a Siegfried and Roy kind of magic. It’s a different kind of penetrating magic. I did it at one time.”

“You don’t think you can do it today?” Dylan was then asked, at which point his eyes turned sad and he shook his head. “Does that disappoint you?”

“Well, you can’t do something forever,” Dylan said. “I did it once and I can do other things now. But I can’t do that.”