Bulking up with Oleksandr Usyk and Jon Jones | OneFootball

The other day someone described how, for him, the end of the football season signaled some kind of void, where Newcastle United going into its summer recess leaves near total darkness, with only the odd bit of transfer gossip providing any light.

Even if the gossip is very likely to be nonsense, that made a bit of sense to me.

However, not completely.

I confess to being a bit of a sports nut, to the point that I don’t need a religious festival, or celestial alignment or anything, to know what time of year it is: never mind Easter, Masters Sunday equals Spring; the return of the Premier League and NFL mean it’s Autumn; the Six Nations Rugby says it’s Winter.

And if I can’t find any of those it must be Summer and I’ll have to settle for Cricket, The Open and Wimbledon (and my least favorite sports crowd on earth, but that’s a different conversation).

Essentially, as long as it doesn’t involve an engine or a horse, I’ll have, at least, a passing interest. And I always support someone. There’s no concept of watching as a neutral, even if it’s an entirely illogical preference. In some cases I even care, so, for example, I’m now entirely behind LIV golfers, because those are our PIF brethren and His Excellency would want us to stick together. Yeah, Summer can be tricky, but you can get by.

However, there’s a clear pecking order, and, as luck would have it, the things I’m really into are, pretty much, all year round: Football in tournament years, Rugby via the Summer tours, and the fight game, both Boxing and MMA.

Between those, and thanks to time zones, rising early with Newcastle United and finishing late with just the UFC part, is entirely feasible these days. Football and fisticuffs on a Saturday. Just like the old days, sort of. Magic stuff.

Anyway, one bit of conventional wisdom in combat sports is that a good big will always beat a good little. Which is, historically, fair enough, except that recently both Oleksandr Usyk in Boxing, and Jon Jones in UFC, have whacked a bit of weight on, and won world titles at Heavyweight.

And very impressive they were too, although, belts notwithstanding, there are some that would say they haven’t dethroned the dominant Champions of the day, in Tyson Fury and Francis Ngannou. A reasonable point, but, to my mind at least, both Oleksandr Usyk and Jon Jones did it in good style, and looked like they belong. Best of all though, in doing so, they both disrupted the living clarts out of the rankings, and therefore a whole load of gravy trains.

Where else do I get the sense that is happening ?

So it was, whilst watching the latter of the two fights, as Jon Jones won without being remotely stretched, I suddenly thought: that’s us. That’s NUFC. Bulking up to take on the big lads. Not only that, but, so far, whilst we’ve won nowt (nearly though!) we also look pretty comfortable at the higher weight. No lack of power, no lack of stamina. Not getting pushed around by anybody.

Quite the opposite really, and so far, in the world being built by Eddie, there are no signs of imposter syndrome whatsoever. Which is saying something I reckon. Now and again I can even get past 50 years of scar tissue to be a bit confident, and in those moments I like to think of Newcastle United as this big bad thing in the dark, emerging malevolently from the shadows, confirming all the worst fears in certain stadiums around the country.

Every time I see the league table these days, I’m inspired by the boardroom retribution scenes from RoboCop and Toby Maguire’s first Spider-Man, and imagine sniveling men in suits getting theirs whilst whimpering in the corner, with the theme from Mastermind (think it is called ‘Approaching Menace’ which fits canny) playing in the background. They all look just like Daniel Levy or John Henry, too.

Something nasty and theatrical like that.

Best of all, it’s realistic you would think. Just like Oleksandr Usyk and Jon Jones with the rankings, us making The Champions League takes a flame thrower to a lot of financial planning. Gravy trains more derailed than disrupted. Now stopping at stations a lot less glamorous.

If we make it, that is. There is much work to do, of course, and a bit of pressure ahead you would expect, but even after the Arsenal result, we’ve won 8/10, including a handy win over one alleged leviathan, and a total howking of another. Check the table in early March and ask yourself if Liverpool are the only team finishing strongly ?

No, I say we started the season conservatively, worked our way into the fight, dominated the late middle section, and are ahead on points going into the Championship rounds. Just like Oleksandr Usyk did twice against Anthony Joshua.

In both cases our man navigated AJ’s late fight urgency with great composure and skill, looking every bit the double Olympic gold medalist. Not sure NUFC’s recent haul of trophies matches that level of experience, but I am sure the North West will be coming at us pretty hard in the coming weeks, making it, largely, a test of what’s in our heads from this point on. On and off the pitch.

Which you’d expect, because Champions League places, like world titles, are much coveted, hard to earn, and even harder to defend. That’s why you try to form a Super League. Or, if you can’t manage that, just put weights in your gloves and call it FFP.

However, nothing is forever and similar upheavals have happened before. Years ago there were only three heavyweights: Liverpool, Manu and Arsenal. Nowadays I’d say you can add Chelsea and Man City, whilst Arsenal, after recent seasons, hold on by the skin of their teeth. Which makes five, not six.

I’d actually go a bit further and claim Man City and Liverpool are clearly your Fury / Ngannou. City for sure, and there’s no objective way to claim a team who’ve been in three of the last five Champions League finals is over just because of one bad season. Unpopular view it may be, but those two still look like the class Heavyweights of the Prem to me.

As for Spurs, seems to me they punched above their weight for a while, based mostly on having an indefensible death move called Harry Kane. But you can’t operate at the top level of combat sports without having a range of skills, so, despite the really nice shiny gym they’ve built for themselves, they’re headed to their traditional weight division at Cruiserweight. Along with us, Everton, Villa and Leeds. At least in my head.

Fans of all of those will twist like fans do about whatever is convenient in their ‘my dad is bigger than your dad’ storytelling, but post war records say they’re Cruisers, not Heavies, and even then only on potential, not titles or trophies. I also wonder if that’s why a bit of edge has emerged amongst those clubs, even if it is only amongst inadequate schoolboys on social media. We’re each other’s natural competition.