BoxRec

After seemingly being in a deep sleep for a long ass time, the heavies have woken up.
Say what you will about how deadly dull Klitschko-Fury was & how ridiculous the IBF looks for stripping Fury of their belt & recognition as champion, but it's certainly shaken things up in the weight class.
Sure, some of the bouts scheduled to take place over the next few weeks were already made before Fury's upset of Wlad, but still, by midway through January the heavyweight landscape should look quite a bit different at/near the top. With the winners of Jennings-Ortiz, Wilder-Szpilka, Joshua-Whyte, Chagaev-Browne & eventually Martin-Glazkov setting up a whole new pecking order underneath Fury & Klitschko. Not to mention lesser match ups like David Haye-DeMori, Arreola-Kauffman , Breazeale vs ( let's hope ) rumored Martin replacement Amir Mansour & a rescheduled Pulev-Teper further establishing who's who.
For the first time in ages I'm actually a wee bit excited about the heavyweights again.

It will be splintered and diluted. Everybodies claim to the title will be less meaningful. It'll be like Byrd and Ruiz etal.
The IBF will strap up a third tier heavy. Wilder while still unproven already has one. Fury has the most legit claim
but now he's lost in the crowd. Unification could take a decade, if ever. Everything's just swell.

snake33 wrote:. Fury has the most legit claim
but now he's lost in the crowd.

How is he lost in the crowd?
I mean he just beat the long reigning champ.
Please explain

Fury is clearly the lineal champ at this point but any time you have more than one person claiming to be the same thing there is ambiguity.
Now we'll have three. Each one claiming they are the legit champ, better than anybody. And right here on this board, right this minute, there
are people arguing that Wilder is better than Fury, despite who he may have beat. And the third guy will say he's better than both. If Fury
get's beat, it could split up even more. Lewis may be the last undisputed champ for a long long time.
Multiple champs make more money for the sanctioning bodies and maybe Al. But it leaves everything a mess dilutes legacies.

Yeah well, boxing politics have always been screwed up. What else is new?
However, the point of my original post was the excitement that the upcoming slate of fights involving world class heavyweights who are actually fighting one another for a change rather than sitting on their laurels waiting to become one of Wlad's bi-annual opponents or fighting oft-beaten retreads like Kevin Johnson or Derrick Rossy in order to boost themselves a bit in the ratings.
I mean c'mon, for a while there it looked as if ol' Tony Thompson was positioning himself for yet a third crack at the title.
Nothing against him as he's still a good solid fringe contender, but now he's at the gatekeeper stage of his career where he belongs because the younger, fresher faces are actually fighting each other. As it should be.
And, just because the 'BC & the 'BF don't recognize Tyson Fury as the heavyweight champion of the world, everyone knows that he's the man that beat the man.

Hard to suggest there's any ambiguity. To be the man you need to beat the man, and the man is clearly Fury -- as evidenced by Wilder saying he was coming for Fury.
Hard to see the kind of stagnant situation there was with Ruiz, Byrd, Valuev, with regards to unifying the titles. Wilder looks to be on a holding pattern waiting for a big payday. All the other likely lads at HW, Joshua, Parker, Martin, Haye, etc, don't seem to be shrinking violet types. The next 3 or 4 years look like being the most interesting and exciting in the HW division since Lewis retired.

snake33 wrote:Fury has the most legit claim

Fury has and would have the only claim.

Taki... wrote:Wilder looks to be on a holding pattern waiting for a big payday.

I don't think it's really fair to say he is in a holding pattern. Wilder's still building his record and gaining experience.

Wilder's last 8 opponents and next opponent:

Artur Szpilka - 3rd best opponent.
Johann Duhaupas - 3rd best opponent at the time.
Eric Molina - 6th best opponent at the time.
Bermane Stiverne - Best opponent at the time.
Jason Gavern - 5th best opponent at the time.
Malik Scott - Best opponent at the time.
Nicolai Firtha - 2nd best opponent at the time.
Siarhei Liakhovich - 2nd best opponent at the time.
Audley Harrison - Best opponent at the time.

Horse wrote:

Taki... wrote:Wilder looks to be on a holding pattern waiting for a big payday.

I don't think it's really fair to say he is in a holding pattern. Wilder's still building his record and gaining experience.

Wilder's last 8 opponents and next opponent:

Artur Szpilka - 3rd best opponent.
Johann Duhaupas - 3rd best opponent at the time.
Eric Molina - 6th best opponent at the time.
Bermane Stiverne - Best opponent at the time.
Jason Gavern - 5th best opponent at the time.
Malik Scott - Best opponent at the time.
Nicolai Firtha - 2nd best opponent at the time.
Siarhei Liakhovich - 2nd best opponent at the time.
Audley Harrison - Best opponent at the time.

You'd be hard pushed to suggest any of those fighters, let alone four of them, were worthy of a world title fight. Not one, including Stiverne, is a top 10 fighter. It's more record padding than record building.

Taki... wrote:You'd be hard pushed to suggest any of those fighters, let alone four of them, were worthy of a world title fight. Not one, including Stiverne, is a top 10 fighter. It's more record padding than record building.

Scott is currently a top 10 fighter. Stiverne was top 10 at the time as well.

Duhaupas & Szpilka are worthy WBC title challengers. Duhaupas was top 20ish in the world and Szpilka is top 15ish.

Not great world title opponents, but not bad either. They'd be significant additions to anyone in the division's record except for Wlad's.

Horse wrote:

Taki... wrote:You'd be hard pushed to suggest any of those fighters, let alone four of them, were worthy of a world title fight. Not one, including Stiverne, is a top 10 fighter. It's more record padding than record building.

Scott is currently a top 10 fighter. Stiverne was top 10 at the time as well.

Duhaupas & Szpilka are worthy WBC title challengers. Duhaupas was top 20ish in the world and Szpilka is top 15ish.

Not great world title opponents, but not bad either. They'd be significant additions to anyone in the division's record except for Wlad's.

I'm not talking about ABC rankings. Stiverne was and is hovering around top 15, Szpilka top 20 maybe. Duhaupas and Molina were the kind of fights you'd be expecting Parker and Joshua to take, not someone with a world title. Not great, not good, and only 50% get a pass for average, and that's being generous.

Taki... wrote:I'm not talking about ABC rankings. Stiverne was and is hovering around top 15, Szpilka top 20 maybe. Duhaupas and Molina were the kind of fights you'd be expecting Parker and Joshua to take, not someone with a world title. Not great, not good, and only 50% get a pass for average, and that's being generous.

I'm not talking about the ABC rankings either.

You can talk down all of his wins if you want, but very few world champions fight top 10 ranked fighters on a regular basis.

Hardly anyone in the division has a decent record and Wilder is one of the few who does.

In a year you're going to have 5 or 6 "WORLD" champions plus Silver, Super, Junior, Interim, etc. champions, none of whom will want to fight any of the other "champions" and casual boxing fans will have totally forgotten who the real champ is. Enjoy things while you can. Shannon Briggs will be fighting Eddie Chambers soon for the KFC heavyweight championship of the Universe.

Horse wrote:

Taki... wrote:I'm not talking about ABC rankings. Stiverne was and is hovering around top 15, Szpilka top 20 maybe. Duhaupas and Molina were the kind of fights you'd be expecting Parker and Joshua to take, not someone with a world title. Not great, not good, and only 50% get a pass for average, and that's being generous.

I'm not talking about the ABC rankings either.

You can talk down all of his wins if you want, but very few world champions fight top 10 ranked fighters on a regular basis.

Hardly anyone in the division has a decent record and Wilder is one of the few who does.

It's more a case of you talking his wins up. Wilder has great record because 90% of it is against awful opponents. Duhaupas and Molina are average gimmes for any decent to good HW, Stiverne has a decent punch and chin, but zero conditioning. And Szpilka was handily beaten by Jennings. As for fighting top ten opponents, big difference between not regularly and not at all.

Taki... wrote:It's more a case of you talking his wins up. Wilder has great record because 90% of it is against awful opponents.

No, he has one of the strongest records in the division based on the good fighters that he has faced.

Taki... wrote:Duhaupas and Molina are average gimmes for any decent to good HW,

Who are these decent to good heavyweights then?

Taki... wrote:Stiverne has a decent punch and chin, but zero conditioning. And Szpilka was handily beaten by Jennings. As for fighting top ten opponents, big difference between not regularly and not at all.

But, Wilder has beaten a top 10 ranked heavyweight in the last 12 months.

I want to see super 4: Fury/Wilder/Povetkin/Joshua. Wlad should retire. We've seen enough of that boredom.

Cap wrote:In a year you're going to have 5 or 6 "WORLD" champions plus Silver, Super, Junior, Interim, etc. champions, none of whom will want to fight any of the other "champions" and casual boxing fans will have totally forgotten who the real champ is. Enjoy things while you can. Shannon Briggs will be fighting Eddie Chambers soon for the KFC heavyweight championship of the Universe.

You have summed that up correctly. Boxing is so fecked up....ahh the good old days, where did they go.

Hopefully if the organisations do there jobs and make sure the right guys are becoming mandatorys and then enforcing those mandatorys then the division shouldn't suffer.

One good think about Wlad was he always faced his mandatorys.
Can't blame the IBF or Glazkov for demanding the fight as he's been mandatory for so long.

Can't blame fury or Wlad for the rematch clause and definetly can't blame Wlad for enforcing it.

One of those unfortunate situations were there wasn't a solution that made everyone happy.

If Wlad loses to Fury again: How likely is it that he will fight Glazkov, or whoever else, for the IBF title?

Fury is the champ

He pissed about in the fights where he looked vulnerable, but when it mattered, he stepped up. I agree it seems to be a better era than 10 years ago. Fury always looked beatable, but then so did Wlad 10 years ago.

Wlad seemed so untouchable... Until a few months and a few fights have passed I will have trouble seeing fury as any different. Honestly, he took the piss out of wladamir. It wasn't even close. He is head and shoulders the best

At the moment, the landscape doesn't look THAT much better I have to say

Let's just hope that Fury & his people have it in mind to stay busy & fight often.
I'd like to see them schedule the rematch for the spring.
I've no interest whatsoever in watching him loaf about making appearances on the talk show circuit while getting fat from too many green room biscuits & after show pints. He's run his mouth & said too much in the aftermath already, don't you think?
So, let's get the return bout signed & scheduled then.
I'm very curious to see just how much of their dreadfully dreary first affair was the result of an obviously distracted, disinterested, under prepared Klitschko's failings & how much of it was actually accomplished by Fury by design.
In other words, how much of the outcome was the result of Fury doing enough to win it as opposed to Klitschko simply doing so little that he lost it?
I'd like to have my curiosity about it satisfied sooner rather than later so that whomever is the champion afterward can go about his business of defending against another more interesting contender that might make for a better fight.

Horse wrote:

Taki... wrote:You'd be hard pushed to suggest any of those fighters, let alone four of them, were worthy of a world title fight. Not one, including Stiverne, is a top 10 fighter. It's more record padding than record building.

Scott is currently a top 10 fighter. Stiverne was top 10 at the time as well.

Duhaupas & Szpilka are worthy WBC title challengers. Duhaupas was top 20ish in the world and Szpilka is top 15ish.

Not great world title opponents, but not bad either. They'd be significant additions to anyone in the division's record except for Wlad's.

Scott is a bum only good fight against shot old Thompson. Stiverne a gate keeper at best fell into title. Szpilka is fringe at best. Duhaupas just below fringe...

You need to take off you rose colored glassed..

Mr Icaman wrote:Scott is a bum only good fight against shot old Thompson. Stiverne a gate keeper at best fell into title. Szpilka is fringe at best. Duhaupas just below fringe...

You need to take off you rose colored glassed..

Who is good then?

Horse wrote:

Taki... wrote:Duhaupas and Molina are average gimmes for any decent to good HW,

Who are these decent to good heavyweights then?

Well Arreola is scarcely even considered decent these days, struggling mightily with Curtis Harper and Fred Kassi. But he bulldozed Eric Molina in 1 f*cking round.

On a related note, not everyone agrees that Dereck Chisora is top 10. But he stopped Malik Scott in 6 rounds.

Horse wrote:

Mr Icaman wrote:Scott is a bum only good fight against shot old Thompson. Stiverne a gate keeper at best fell into title. Szpilka is fringe at best. Duhaupas just below fringe...

You need to take off you rose colored glassed..

Who is good then?

Fury
Wlad
Povetkin
Jennings
Wilder
Pulev
Chagev
Glazkov
Teper
Browne
Ortiz
Joshua
Parker
Stiverne
Perez
Wach
Ustinov
Helenius
Chisora
Fedosov