Joshua is going to duck Joe Joyce he WILL vacate

True enough, and as I said I'm not a big Fury fan either...

In one sense "it couldn't be much worse" - in another, I doubt Fury would be as likely to hang onto it for as long.... I suspect he'd actually chase AJ rather than hide from him, and then even if he wins that I can't see him fighting too many times before losing interest and either vacating or quitting - I just don't get the sense he's in it for the long haul (whereas I can see Wilder quite happily getting back into knocking out less than stellar opponents for several years).

I may not be right in my projections, but it's the sense I get...

Regardless, I still think it'd be unsporting for Wilder to walk away from that trilogy with the belt given the first two fights.

 

I see where you're coming from. But, aside from Vlad, Fury's resume is just a touch better that Wilder's. What I saw, was Wilder beginning to step up. 2 fights with Ortiz and 2, now 3 fights with Fury. There was a fight that fell apart with Povetkin. I know it's not the best, but I can see him fighting AJ if he wins. Or Usyk depending on the outcome.

 

Fair...

Wlad stands head and shoulders above Wilders whole resume.

Ortiz and Chisora are roughly equal.

Then you have a win and a controversial draw (that most think should've been a win) over Wilder on Fury's.

It's clearly a better resume, but it could do with some more adding to it.

I'm not so convinced - Ortiz was always massively overhyped for how little he's really done in his career... He has a gatekeeper level resume, looks like he should be better than that but never proved it.

I see Fury #1 as a cherrypick gone wrong... #2 as either delusionally thinking he'd won #1 or embarrassment at the general perception that he'd lost and trying to avenge that... #3 makes less sense to me, he doesn't look like he even wants it, but then I guess it's one last attempt at redemption.

IIRC Povetkin was a mandatory, popped for a fairly irrelevant PED and Wilder showed no real interest in wanting to fight him after that (not that I blame him, Povetkin in decent condition would've been too much for Wilder IMHO).

I hope you're right, regardless of whether he wins #3 or not... I suspect that if he ducked AJ when his confidence was at its absolute peak he's unlikely to want that fight now - I'd like to be proven wrong, but I don't think Wilder will go for AJ regardless of what happens or what he's offered.

 

Joyce would get destroyed by Dillian Whyte let alone AJ.

 

You are very wrong

 

Hypothetically, if a fighter was to comfortably beat prime Chisora, Arreola, Peter and Mercer, that would be an impressive collection of wins wouldn't it? But the problem is that they are all basically the same guy: short, fat, plodding pressure fighters of similar quality. Likewise, comfortably beating several movers of similar quality and physical attributes also wouldn't necessarily prove more than you can deal with that kind of fighter.

So in my view, if a fighter had dominant wins over a decent mauler and a decent mover, that would be better than four wins over decent movers or decent maulers.

Ortiz's 7th round TKO victory over Jennings (a good mover) away from home (who at that time was a top contender, ranked 6th by The Ring) is better than anything Whyte, Chisora or Parker have done. Then at an official 40 years old and after being KO'd by Wilder, Ortiz pitched a shutout against Hammer, who is a skilled mauler (a junior world amateur champion and former contender) of similar quality to Chisora with wins over K. Johnson, Teper and Price in the pros and he went the distance with 37 year old Povetkin and Yoka away from home. Then you have the emphatic manner that Ortiz dealt with journeymen like Allen and Cojanu: more decisively than any of his rival contenders, including Parker and Whyte. Then you have the fact that Ortiz was ducked very heavily.

Why was Ortiz so heavily avoided?

He was a skilled Cuban amateur, he’s a southpaw, 6’3, 240 lbs, he has a lot of power, he’s aggressive, he’s experienced, he was a top 5 Ring HW, he beat Jennings very impressively and beat domestic level fighters more comprehensively than his rival contenders, he hadn’t been hurt or dropped and was undefeated (28-0, 24 KO's) he was old (no one wants to lose to grandpa or gets as much credit for beating him up) he was relatively unknown, he doesn’t speak English, he has no charisma, his countrymen only care about amateur boxing and if you beat him, other contenders would duck you.

Like Hrgovic, high risk, low reward.

But Wilder KO'd Ortiz twice and Wilder is a bum so Ortiz must be a bummier bum. And Ruiz destroyed AJ so Ruiz must be a killer, even though he couldn't KO a shot Liakhovich over 10 rounds while Wilder did it to a younger, less worn version within 2 minutes.