Tyson Fury has never defended a world heavyweight title

Fury may well be the best active heavyweight, but he was banned, and rightly so. Therefore he was stripped of his belts. Even if you disregard his ban, you then have to take into account his fights between Wilder. Not a chance in hell would he get away with fighting those guys had he held those belts. You don’t get to have your cake, and all that nonsense.

Joshua has to beat Fury to prove that he’s the best, not to prove that he’s a champion.

 

And all of that is still irrelevant as far as the lineage is concerned.

As I already pointed out, James Braddock pulled out of a scheduled bout with Max Schmeling (or "ducked" him, if you prefer) and didn't defend his status for two years. He still retained the lineage, which was then passed to Louis. I'll suppose that you didn't realise such a precedent existed when you attempted to invalidate Fury's widely recognized claim by remarking that he "ducked" Wlad and didn't fight for 2.5 years, but there it is, clear as day, for anyone who doesn't understand how the lineage works. It is what it is and you cannot circumvent it. Fury is the man who beat the man, and nobody has yet beaten him. Moreover, when Fury decided to roll off the couch, he dealt with Joshua's bully for him like any good big bro should. When they finally get around to scrapping, like all siblings do at some point or other, little broski Joshua will get spanked.

Whether he was rightly banned is open to debate (some agree with you, many do not), but it's still irrelevant with regard to the lineage. As are the plastic sanctioning body belts and the fact that he had some gimme fights (the consensus #2 ATG HW had a storied "bum of the month" tour, let's not forget).

Visiting AJ's bully on his own turf and beating him up trumps all this grousing about a few gimme fights.

AJ absolutely has to beat Fury to prove that he's a champion. 100%.

 

Yep, incontrovertibly so. ^ This is what history will remember and what historians will take seriously.

 

One of our own, @Rumsfeld, can clear this up for any remaining stragglers (published December 2018);

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The Gypsy king will do and retire undefeated.

 

Fury is the HW Picasso, it's up to Joshua to prove otherwise, and everybody's just got to deal with it.

AJ went life and death with a guy Fury had already schooled around 18 months prior, then he mopped up some rival contenders, and that's fine and dandy...but he left the most intimidating rival contender for Fury to deal with. Joshua didn't even want that guy setting foot in his ring, let's recall – no vulgar callouts, please, I'm Anthony and I've got a stiff upper lip.

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Tyson Luke Fury shows Anthony Joshua how its done;

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Firstly, to be clear, I think Fury beats Joshua. But Fury did test positive for a banned substance. This is not debatable. All sports have rules and regulations that their athletes have to abide by, and boxing is not different.

With regard to the lineal champion, I put little stock in anyone claiming to have that status since Lewis. Wlad beating Chagaev doesn’t count in my books, just because he wouldn’t fight his brother.

 

How many mandatory challengers has Fury beat? Zilch.

 

UKAD seemed quite happy to accept Fury's explanation on the nandrolone until 1.5 years after the positive, when it was dug up out of the blue (with no prior correspondence from UKAD to the Fury camp to suggest it was an ongoing matter after the initial discussions in early 2015) in the wake of the media tearing Fury apart for his wrongspeak. UKAD subsequently accepted the proposal of a backdated ban – an utterly risible non-punishment for supposed wrongdoing, since Fury was unable to box between December 2015 and December 2017 anyway, on account of his personal issues – to prevent themselves being annihilated and ruined in court. They didn't win anything. They got bent over and pounded by the Fury camp.

"Ukad was forced to strike a deal with the Furys after what chief executive Nicole Sapstead admitted had been its “failure” to inform the fighters they could face action until charging them 16 months after nandrolone was discovered in their urine."

Among the matters that Fury's lawyers were calling on the High Court to adjudicate; "whether or not UKAD told Team Fury at that time that the contamination of a dietary supplement was the most likely explanation of the adverse test results" and "whether or not UKAD told Team Fury in September 2015 that no charges would be brought against the boxers".

If UKAD were an outfit of such great integrity and had never led Team Fury to believe that they were in the clear, why were they so scared to go to court?

AKAD are hardly an incorruptible body. They gave the green light to Whyte to box Rivas after testing positive.

He amassed a body of work superior to that of Vitaly, who was happy to take the backseat even upon his return to the sport from longterm injury leave. I can't really hold it against two brothers for refusing to fight, however frustrating it might be for fans. Vitaly made that choice just as much as Wlad did.

The sport widely recognizes Wlad as lineal champ between 2009-2015, notwithstanding your personal mileage on the matter.

 

Oh, he will bang that drum. Better believe he saw how a body dig cheekier than one of Eddie's slap-up Nando's dinners let all the air out of Joshua for a period;

(Sidenote – it was a Fury bodyshot that kept Ste Cunningham on the deck for the only time in his career.)

Kronk is enhancing Fury's already considerable body attack, too, evidence in the Wilder rematch. That was some thorough torso dissection.

 

Alarming is the word. His punches immediately started coming out just as if Whyte had pushed him into a tank of molasses.