Who are the only worthy heavyweight contenders?

[keithmoonhangover]

fury and wlad are 1 and 2

therefore povetkin is still number 3 until someone beats him or somehow fights and destroys a string of decent enough fighters.

most of the supposed worthy contenders have had 1 decent win, if that

Remember when you laughed at me for saying Fury was going to be a world champion?

[HyacinthusTurnipseed]

Depends on how you look at it. There are seven or eight guys (T Fury, Joshua, Wlad, Ortiz, Wilder, Povetkin and Parker. Maybe Haye) that ideally would be fighting each other sooner or later. Then in the second tier there are the guys (Duhapas, Pulev, Takam, etc etc. Maybe Haye is in this group) who've been in title / big fights and acquitted themselves at least okay enough to perhaps warrant getting a go with one of the other guys in certain circumstances. A third tier of guys who've been prospects for a while (H Fury, Ruiz, MIller, Browne etc etc) who likewise could be matched with tier one guys in certain circumstances. In tier four are guys like Briggs, Molina, Chisora, Helenius who can be interestingly matched with some tier two and three guys but not really tier one.

Joshua-Molina style fights may be necessary from time to time given the nature of the business, but it isn't necessary for us as fans to just uncritically accept it without even grumbling at all (or choosing to not bother tuning in).

[davie]

It's fairly straight forward.
Recent challengers:

Szpilka, Martin, Breazeale, Molina (twice), Duhaupas, Arreola (twice), Glaskov, Ruiz, Stiverne

All ranked and rated (by anyone who knows anything) below Klitschko, Fury, Wilder, Ortiz, Joshua, Povetkin, Pulev, Parker and even Haye.

Take any combination of that second group and you have a good match up.
Unfortunately too many of the top group are getting shots.

Arreola got his first shot for a vacant title against someone he'd just lost to and still got another chance.
What Molina did to deserve 2 shots is a mystery.
All of Wilder and Joshua's defences have been poor, both men have had opportunities to fight better. I don't believe AJ vs Wlad was ever really serious and it's an elaborate ploy to pass off some more shote, knowing they were looking at next year

The Parker vs Ruiz fight is a decent match up and not the worst I've ever seen for a world title but how many better options did the WBO have than Ruiz?

People constantly moan because the match ups are shite, not because they're in some way hard to please