JoeCorrao wrote: ↑24 Apr 2022, 07:51
This might be the worst era ever for heavies. Fury is a grabber who has no real opponents other than age. He would not have beaten either Klitscho or Lewis...or a Larry Holmes for that mater. IMHO
The post Lewis era, basically the Klitschko brothers era, was worse. There was literally nobody out there who could really match up to either of them. Too short, too old, too limited, too gunshy, etc.
With this era you at least have competitiveness--- Fury is clearly number one, Usyk is arguably number two, Wilder is number three, Joshua is number four, and Ruiz is number five. On any given night the other four could beat each other. But I don't think any of them beats Fury.
Tyson Fury is simply too big, too athletic, too skilled, and he has great will and determination combined with damn good conditioning even if he will never win a body beautiful contest. He would have been a tough assignment for any heavyweight in history.
I think the only ones who would have gave him trouble from the past would have been Holmes, Lewis, and Foreman--- honorable mention Vitali Klitschko, due to his own size and heart. Of course we can agree to disagree, but it seems to be a common pattern here at BoxRec that every time Fury wins a fight that all of these opponents suddenly become bums and were never good or they were too old.
Check the credentials:
8 year reigning champion w/ 20+ defenses
Another champion w/ 10 defenses 3x's
The #1 contender for 3 years
Then throw in the fact that Fury was British and Irish and European champion, and being two time heavyweight champion of the world in 33 total fights. That's quite the achievement considering in the early going most people assumed that it would be David Price who would have ended up being heavyweight champion and that Fury would go nowhere.
Plus the fact that in the midst of all of that Fury had a mental breakdown and gained up to 400 pounds and made arguably the greatest comeback in boxing history due to his faith in Jesus Christ Almighty God and his own desire to prove every single critic wrong.
If he faces Usyk and wins, I would hate to hear all of the excuses and familiar statements made by the usual suspects on this forum: "Usyk was just too small," "The Joshua fights & the war in the Ukraine took everything out of Usyk," etc--- when so many people have basically said that Usyk not only would beat Tyson Fury but that the Ukrainian is better than Evander Holyfield.
If Joshua beats Usyk, and then Fury beats him, I suspect that most people would say the victory was meaningless because Joshua already lost twice already, etc--- therefore Tyson Fury is always in this position where he will never get the credit that he actually deserves in a way a lot like Larry Holmes, Lennox Lewis, Ezzard Charles, and Gene Tunney.
Quite frankly, after Joshua and Usyk, there literally is nobody out there. Nobody with a straight face is ever going to say Joe Joyce can actually beat Tyson Fury. Nobody with a mind for boxing is ever going to say that Andy Ruiz could ever actually beat Tyson Fury. Etc
In a way it's a predicament a bit like Rocky Marciano, where you fast forward decades later and people want to bring up Floyd Patterson or Earl Walls or Bob Satterfield, etc when none of those guys were really on the radar when Rocky retired. Some critic will always bring up a name even if they had no chance of winning.
Jesus Christ Almighty God bless you all
I had a few drinks, but calmed down after a bit, and my cooler head prevailed.
