The A.J Interview 6pm 26/10

I'm not sure if you're deliberately being obtuse. I'm not sure how Fury's 4 top level wins are overshadowed by Usyk's win against Joshua. We're not playing a percentage game here. It's simple. Who has the wins at the highest level? Fury has 4, Wilder has 0, Usyk has 1 and Joshua has 1. Then there's context - how did they win, where did they do it? Then there's the context of the context - how does X win position itself within the current landscape of the division or the historical landscape of the division?

Fury comes out on top, quite clearly and the others have to go some way to catching up to him.

 

Elton John's stomping ground.

 

He is long gone - Shanny is the Governor now in that patch of land

 

It appears that the 5 members of his team who went to the States with him are blaming the other members of his "small" team. When Big Josh speaks to them he's going to be confused. Nurse!

 

I'm not arguing that Fury isn't the best (on paper). The problem is that people are writing of wins against relatively decent opposition for the fighter they are backing, but bigging up these wins for the fighter they are for.

Personally, I think all fighters mentioned have decent resumes, but not great, as they all haven't fought each other. AJ has a decent resume, but it is missing more wins against the top guys. Fury, on paper, is the best fighter. His win against Wlad in Germany is better than anything on anyone's resume in the current HW era. His win against Wlad is even better than any win on Wlad or Vitali's resume. His Wilder wins (it really should be 3 wins) are good, too. After that there is a big drop off. Top guys aside, AJ has a slightly deeper resume, but obviously the top wins are what counts most, so that's why I rate Fury better. Wilder has the weakest resume out of them all. Usyk is obviously the wildcard due to his short time at HW.

So all have decent enough resumes, in my eyes, but they are all lacking in more top names. You mentioned Fury's 4 wins. They are good, as I mentioned earlier, but 3 are against the same opponent, and whilst the last fight was great to watch, it was a largely meaningless fight. Fury beat Wilder on the back foot in their first fight (I don't care what the official decision says), and he murdered him on the front foot in the rematch. The 3rd fight should never have happened and adds least to Fury's legacy out of the three fights.

I think this is indicative of the current state of boxing. Top fighters are avoiding each other, not just in the HW division. However, instead of fans pushing for theses fights more, they seem to spend too much time, in my opinion, arguing over who would win based on resume, like you would normally argue who would win in a fantasy fight between two fighters of different eras.

Apologies for the rambling post. I've had a twat of a day with work and I'm bloody knackered so I'm not sure if my post is coherent enough.

 

@Mitch87 needs to urgently address these issues.

 

Your post is very coherent - thanks. I hope tomorrow will be better.

Basically, I agree with you. But you and many other note a drop-off in Fury's record after the Klitschko and Wilder bouts. His next best wins are Cunningham, Chisora x2 and Wallin (or Kevin Johnson, who sort of still had a pulse but was useless regardless). That's fair enough, but there is a huge drop off anyway between the top guys and the next tier. Rice Pudding Jr, Paint Dry and others are said to bridge the gap somewhat, but I don't think so.

If Klitschko and Wilder are accepted as 10/10 wins (only using this for ease of understanding), then I would suggest that Chisora is maybe 4/10, which is a Fury win, but Parker is only a 5/10 - so there really isn't much of a difference. I think Fury is more impressive beating Chisora than Joshua did with Parker because in 2011 it was viewed as a 50/50, which it pretty much was. Fury has come up in competitive fights and the mettle he has accumulated shows when the going gets tough against the true big boys today.

Joshua's best win is Klitschko, and his next best win is who, an old Povetkin who had just been dropped by David Price? His drop-off is just as big, and he doesn't have the benefit of having beaten another top fighter 3 times, all while remaining undefeated.

There's becoming an increasing disparity in the comparison between Fury and Joshua's respective records. Fury's clearly heading North and Joshua's heading South.

As soon as Joshua lost to Rice Pudding Jr, it was always going to be tough. You can never expunge that skidmark and the scars of not only the bad experience, but the ongoing bruising of Joshua's ego on the back of it means that he will likely never be the same boxer.

 

Very good summary and in addition, with the exception of old Wlad, he has done nothing in the ring to show me he was anywhere near elite level. He is just an above average British Heavyweight who was well packaged by Earn but lacking substance when the wrapping came off.

 

AJ's confidence is shot. Mind/heart seems half in boxing now. If and it's a big if, he can get the spite and dog back from earlier in his career (Whyte fight for example) then he COULD win a rematch. Other than that no chance, unfortunately (outside of the hail mary heavyweight swing that anyone can get at that weight)

 

Most overpaid bum ever.

 

I wish Man U used negative tactics to paper over the cracks, the issue is they don’t…also have the most expensive defence in the world…

Though I see what you were trying to say…

 

If Tyson Fury had Joshua's clean cut looks (and another attribute, but we won't go there), he would be touted as the second coming of Muhammad Ali and one of the absolute greatest British sportsmen in history.

 

Nothing wrong with changing trainers, but its the fact he wants multiple coaches. He should know it didnt work v Usyk having multiple voices in corner.

 

AJ definitely benefitted by the PR team when he joined Matchroom. Shame for Fury that AJ lost to Usyk as beating him in the UK probably puts him in that conversation for the everyday person, had AJ not lost his last fight (and in the manner he did)

 

The penny should've dropped for most people the moment he was battered from pillar to post by Andy Rice Pudding Jr in his only outing in America.