Hahaha!!!!! And you say Whyte knows he will lose to Fury? Yeah because fighters at that level with his record dont back themselves in any fight yeah? you’re full of shyte mate. And you know you’re full of it. “you know it” right back at you LOL
You are kind of supporting my point there. And Joyce is not being advertised as a gold medalist. I can't recall when has anyone gotten cache for beating an Olympic Silver medalist in the heavyweight division unless that opponent already proven himself in the pro ranks. Even with the Gold medal people don't say wow you beat Povetkin the former Gold Medalist. They say wow you beat Povetkin the guy with a great resume at heavyweight that never quite became champion. And besides, as of now Yoka is the gold medalist not Joyce (whether we like that or not). Please let's not turn this into a thread about Ortiz. You already know we have a fundamental disagreement on him, and it's not relevant to Joe Joyce. And you are welcome to disagree with my assessment of resumes, but please understand you also disagree with the PBO, The Ring, and the TBRB. And no, they are not all going to rank Ortiz above Whyte if he beats Martin. You might get the Ring try something like that, but PBO and TBRB certainly won't. That is quite unfortunate for those people in the know. If you ignored the hype and watched Dubois' fights you would have understood his true level at the time. Dubois is/was a prospect with a very high ceiling, but he was being rushed. Of course he looked great knocking over overmatched opposition, but sparring stories don't win you fights unfortunately. Having watched them both, I saw Joyce as the favourite and so the result didn't surprise me at all. Dubois was not progressed the right way because Warren is in desperate need of money and saw Dubois as a the next cash cow but wasn't patient with it. Dubois got his WBO#2 ranking by beating Fujimoto ffs. However, you are correct that it wasn't a 'British level' fight. It was at 'European level', between two British prospects. Joyce's best win is probably still Jennings at this point. He also has a 40yr-Stiverne, a green-Dubois, and an 40yr-Takam. I like Joyce, but his resume is nothing to hype at this time (unless you are Frank Warren). Therefore it's all based on what you think he might achieve in the future. Not what he has achieved. Joyce has yet to fight a top 15 opponent, let alone a top 10 guy. (Well, he did get washed by Usyk, but I tend to ignore that fight because it was outside the pro ranks) i.e. Whyte is by far a better fight for Fury's legacy at this time. Again though, you are basing this all on hypothetical futures. First Joyce, now that of Wallin. Wallin needs to actually do all of that. Btw, Whyte v Povetkin was not a final eliminator. Whyte v Rivas was the final eliminator in 2019. Whyte v Povetkin was for the WBC interim title. Povetkin won the title, then Whyte won it back. If Fury beats Whyte here is the angle: Whyte had been side-lined by the WBC for years. During that time Whyte amassed the fourth best resume behind Joshua, Fury and Wilder. I'm sure history will give Fury more credit for beating Whyte than ducking him. You need to raise your expectations for the Heavyweight #1, Fury
I would like Fury to become undisputed, but right now he has two great names on his ledger: Klitschko and Wilder. And Then. A void. Whyte is a top 4/5 name currently. He's earned his ranking. Fury literally has no top 10 opponents besides the two mentioned above. Of course beating Whyte helps his legacy. I agree that 35% would seem fair, but it ain't my money. I don't agree with the rest I'm not sure I agree on that. This might be the best time to fight Fury for Whyte. I understand what you are saying, but for Fury v Wilder 3, Fury was out of shape. And whilst it was a great fight to watch, Fury took damage in that fight. So in the last two years Fury has fought once, he is not in shape, and if he isn't motivated to fight Whyte, that could be Whyte's chance to spring an upset.
You pay too much attention to rankings agencies and official results, which are in my view subject to incompetence and corruption. According to one of the rankings bodies you touted before, Ruiz became the No.1 ranked HW after destroying AJ, who then got credit for beating the "No.1 HW in the world" after outpointing the stubby untrained blob in the rematch. A more accurate way of understanding at it in my opinion was that AJ got badly exposed for his various deficiencies and Ruiz was a one hit wonder. What does "proven yourself in the pros" mean exactly? Guys like Audley and Biggs had only beaten domestic level fighters, Joyce is vastly more proven in the pros and is not a drug addict. Joyce may yet be awarded a gold medal as the fight was an obvious robbery and it's being looked into. But aside from that, Joyce is unbeaten, has two decent quality wins and has more left in the tank than Whyte, so in the long-run he is more likely to enhance Fury's legacy. The argument about Ortiz was that he has a high ranking (whether you agree that he should or not) that will soon likely rise but beating him wouldn't enhance Fury's legacy much at all, same is true for Whyte. You mention the Ring to bolster the argument for Whyte but then discount them when it comes to Ortiz. Can't you see the contradiction of talking about Fury's legacy "at this time"? Legacy is something long-term, that we can only fully understand a long time after all of the major players are retired. Losing to that version of Povetkin in his backyard in what Hearn described as a final eliminator was a disaster that seriously devalues any future win over Whyte regardless of beating the corpse in the rematch, just as the Ruiz loss massively damaged AJ's stock, as does the Usyk loss and a potential loss in the rematch. The lucky breaks from officials against Chisora x2 (who Fury dominated x2) Parker and Rivas look dreadful as well but this clearly doesn't figure into your rankings. He was also destroyed by AJ, who was outclassed by Usyk and if a shopworn Whyte goes on fighting he'll pick up a lot more losses (whether Fury fights him or not but probably more so if Fury batters him and weakens his chin and confidence further) as he clearly wasn't all that in his prime. So it offers next to nothing for Fury legacy-wise, I'm sure he wouldn't even consider it in those terms. Usyk has the 2nd best HW resume now as I see it: clear win over Chisora away, excellent win over AJ away, no career defeats and the stock of the cruiserweight division has correspondingly increased. Hunter is regarded as a HW contender and Usyk battered him at cruiser in America, Gassiev and Briedis (both away) were likely both better or at minimum in Gassiev's case, more dangerous than Hunter as well. History won't be concerned whether Fury fights Whyte because by losing to Povetkin he removed himself from the equation. Imagine he'd taken the Arreola fight after Povetkin 2, got KO'd and won the rematch, was then reinstated as the interim with a top 5 ranking. Is he still a viable contender for Fury? I think most would regard him as a total irrelevance at that point, which is how I see him now in the HW picture. He's a 1/6 underdog: I highly doubt Fury would be as heavily favoured over all of the others, especially Joyce and Hrgovic.
Your are referring to the PBO. It is algorithm based. Proven in the pros means climbing the ladder beating well regarded opponents. Beating journeymen is expected of a prospect, but then they have some step up fights against fellow contenders before challenging the champion. Joyce hasn't fought a fellow contender yet. He has beaten a prospect and some fringe contenders and journeymen. That is it so far. Maybe you are correct that he has a higher ceiling than Whyte. But that doesn't change his record. You generally like to argue based on what you think happened in the ring and your own eye test. And resultantly your own feeling about who should have been ranked where based on specific performances and who you felt won certain fight. That's fair enough. Detailed qualitative. I prefer going off body of work, whilst also giving credit to what happens in the ring. Quantitative + qualitative. However, if you want to use my standard of cross referencing three independent ranking bodies, then we get a fairer reflection of Ortiz' standing. But my issue with the Ring is they openly show bias towards fighters attached to American promoters, and so I prefer not to go off only them. However, I acknowledge them because many American fans still hold them highly and it would be biased of me to ignore them completely. Btw, Neither Joyce nor Whyte fit that criteria though. You seem to be confusing yourself. Whilst it was a disaster for Whyte to be KO'd Povetkin in the sense it derailed Whyte's run to Wilder. Some fans were elevating Povetkin above Wilder for that win. So if you only have two losses against top 5 opponents, it's really not that big a deal. And it's why these independent ranking bodies still have Whyte top 5. The 90s were a great era because the best were fighting the best, and taking losses along the way. Lennox Lewis is held in high regard because of wins not only against the elite, but avenging his losses against contender level opponents too, and taking on plenty of top 10 opponents along the way. Like Golota and Grant We pretty much know Whytes level, he is in his prime, and though he might take some future loses he would still be third best name on Fury's record after Klitschko and Wilder. Fury's resume is probably on par with Riddick Bowe at the moment. I want to see him held in the same regard as Lewis. And Whyte wasn't "destroyed" by Joshua. His performance was enough to warrant him praise from plenty of fans and boxing writers. And winning in hard fought contests against Chisora, Parker and Rivas is no bad thing. Fury didn't actually dominate Chisora twice, btw. The rematch was one sided I grant you that. But since then most people see Chisora as being in an Indian summer. Which is why we both credit Usyk for the win (try not to have double standards) I really like Usyk. I think he is already an ATG, but his resume at Heavyweight is too thin to say he has second best. As you point out his second best win is against Chisora... But his win over Joshua, is arguably the second best win in the division. At least I would say that. He wouldn't be reinstated in the top 5 though would he if he lost to a low ranked fighter like Arreola. In the same way when Joshua best Ruiz again he didn't become defacto number 1 again on any of the rankings to my knowledge. Instead Whyte lost to top 5 ranked Povetkin after dropping him twice, and then beat him In the rematch. Povetkin was being praised for the win, but suddenly COVID-19 means Whyte gets zero credit. Okay, but what were his peers doing? Either they had been inactive or taking losses themselves. Group 1 - the men of the division Fury beats Wilder twice Usyk beats Joshua Group 2 - elite Joshua loss to Usyk on points Wilder lost twice to Fury by KO Group 3 - established contenders Povetkin beats Whyte, then loses to Whyte (retires) Whyte lost once to Povetkin and beat Povetkin Ruiz Jr. Inactive after his loss to Joshua and looked off his game against Arreola Parker a loss to Whyte on the ledger a win over Chisora Ortiz lost twice to Wilder Hunter innactive following a draw against Povetkin Group 4 - fringe contenders Joyce has an okay win over Takam, good win over Jennings Kabayel beaten Chisora, but is fighting low level opposition Chisora beaten Takam, tough fights against Usyk and Parker. Yoka, beating other journeymen and fringe contendors Helenius, two wins over Kownacki Sanchez Martin, Etc. Etc Personally I think it is important to have some wins against the established contenders. Joyce is still a fringe contender at present. Though one I expect to make the step up. But he needs to step up his opposition, not jump to the front of the queue. So given everything, Whyte is still the best of the available contenders at present. And someone Fury should be eager to pad his record with
Whyte would be the second best guy only Wlad that Fury has fought. Also would likely be Fury most profitable fight of his career. Yet Fury and Arum don't seem keen and woul rather an easier fight (Fury hasn't fought anyone Whyte level in over 5 years).
Odds are a significant factor in how I judge matchups as I believe they tend to be less biased and more accurate than rankings agencies. Although Povetkin was highly ranked, much of that was based on his historical results that were far less relevant when he was about to turn 41 and every one of his past 4 fights had been a war. The consensus on eyeonthering was that since his KO loss at 39 to AJ, he had lost 4 rounds to Hughie and 7 rounds to Hunter. The bookies opened by giving Whyte a 79.2% chance of winning the fight, with 76.9% in the rematch. Usyk was nowhere near as highly ranked as Povetkin at the time but I have no doubt that if Whyte had been fighting Usyk instead, Usyk would have been the favourite, not more than a 3/1 underdog. This would have better reflected reality, no? Dubois was a 2/7 favourite over Joyce, while Joyce opened as shorter than a 1/3 favourite over Jennings, so Dubois was rated extremely highly. Compared to the corpse of Povetkin, Dubois was lowly ranked but Dubois would have destroyed that version of Povetkin in a round or two and he would have been a strong favourite in a Povetkin-Dubois matchup. Thus the win over undefeated big punching SHW Dubois was excellent and in my view better than any of Whyte's wins. Avenging your losses is better than not avenging them but losing to guys that you are massively favoured to beat is a big mark against you, whether you avenge them or not, especially if you lose badly. If the guy you beat in the rematch is coming out of rehab or a walking corpse, the "avenging" means even less. It's difficult to compare between eras, especially when there is a big time gap but considering that Fury has never lost, let alone got chinned and has beaten two reigning 10+ consecutive defence world champions in their backyards in dominant fashion (which no one else in HW history has come close to doing) Fury's record is excellent. When everyone has long retired (which is when we can really asses legacy) will Whyte be rated more highly than Wallin? Will he be rated more highly than 2x cruiser champ Cunningham? He will surely be rated above Chisora but maybe not by that much, as both of those fights were life and death and dubious and Whyte's losses will surely build. Parker and Ruiz are rated above Joyce as well and unlike Whyte they are former world champions but are they really legacy building wins? I would say they do nothing for Fury's legacy, just stay-busy fights. Joyce, Hrgovic and Yoka at least have potential and are undefeated star amateur SHW's. AJ was expected to KO Whyte within 3 as he had done to every opponent up to that point, so Whyte surviving to 7 and winning 2 rounds while hurting AJ was hugely overperforming expectations. This is why he received so much praise, though he was still down 4-2 after 6 and KO'd brutally in 7. Eyeonthering have Fury winning 9-11 rounds by consensus in the first fight. In the rematch Chisora barely landed a meaningful punch, so maybe that requires a stronger word that domination. The "Indian summer" stuff is largely BS, Chisora lost to Kabayel shortly after his 50-50 with Whyte and was schooled by Pulev in Britain before the Whyte fight. Whyte had underperformed the odds considerably; Chisora was regarded as a shopworn British level journeyman but after going life and death with Whyte, he was suddenly having an "Indian summer". It was a similar Chisora in level to the one who was robbed blind against Helenius and pushed Vitali hard. I give Usyk more credit for beating Chisora than Whyte because Usyk beat Chisora by a much clearer margin (though Chisora overperformed expectations). Eyeonthering have it 9-3/8-4 rather than 7-5 (the British judges) or 6-6 (Whyte-Chisora 1). I place more emphasis on quality than quantity, so Usyk's fairly dominant win over A-side AJ in AJ's backyard is worth more than beating Chisora x2, Parker and Rivas in wars as the A-side, with home advantage 2/4 and neutral 2/4. Having fewer losses is also a big thing for me, so Usyk's 0 is vastly better than Whyte, Wilder and AJ's 2. And wins over cruiser contenders and champions in their backyards has to count for something seeing as most of these guys enter the ring around 210 lbs and it's been proven that they can compete well with HW contenders/fringe contenders. Usyk beat Hunter, Briedis and Bellew at cruiser, who had beaten Bakole away, Kuzmin, Charr and Haye x2 at HW and Glowacki had beaten Huck away, who had lost a controversial MD to Povetkin. When assessing a fighter's body of work, I like to look at how many quality opponents of various body types and styles they have beaten and the dominance of the victory: have they beaten a southpaw? Have they beaten a mover? Have they beaten a SHW? Have they beaten a sniper? Have they beaten a mauler? Have they beaten a cruiser? Have they beaten hybrids of these types? If your only wins of note are against short plodders, it doesn't matter much if you have two or ten of them, even if the plodders are highly ranked. And you definitely should not be losing to them.
Using triangle theories to produce your own hypothetical betting odds? No that does not better reflect reality. But, I will have to look at eyes on the ring to give you a response to the rest, but that is a lot of data you have thrown at me, so it won't be any time soon. Btw Hunter v Povetkin had a knockdown that wasn't given by the referee. I recall some gamblers going mental over that. So it's interesting you bring that fight up as a narrow win for Hunter rather than the official draw. I'll reply to you later when I have time EDIT: So you referred to Eyes on the Ring a lot and sprinkled in your own definitions of what results meant. For example Povetkin was old and shop worn. Okay so by your own definition, Povetkin getting floored twice, being behind by anywhere between 4 to 6 rounds (Eyes on the Ring) but setting a lovely trap to KO Whyte with one punch. You say “Whyte lost badly." So, with that line of thinking, according to Eyes on the Ring, Whyte v Chisora 2 was a very close fight, and then Whyte KO'd Chisora with a perfect hook he had been looking for all night. I guess you should call that “Chisora lost extremely badly.” Contrast. Usyk versus Chisora. I personally had Usyk winning, but plenty of people thought Chisora made life difficult for Usyk. As you said Chisora did better than expected against Usyk. But doesn't that looks even worse for Usyk when you consider Chisora had years of punishment on his ledger. Along with getting KO’d by Whyte two years prior. Therefore, Usyk can’t be very good if Chisora did okay again him, when Chisora lost extremely badly against Whyte. So, by that same triangular reasoning you were using in your post, Whyte might be favourite against Usyk. Which, I'm sure we would both agree doesn't reflect reality either. I don’t even know why you are fixated on comparing Usyk and Whyte's win over Chisora. Usyk is on top of the division along with Fury for good reason. You are meant to be making a case for Joyce. But fine, lets look at Eyes on the Ring. Whyte v Parker (The average runs from 116-109 to 113-112, all for Whyte. If you want to remove the KD, at best if you give Parker all the swing rounds he can get is a draw) – So that’s a good win for Whyte. Whyte v Rivas (The average runs from 117-110 and 115-112) – so that is a wide win for Whyte. But sure...Joyce beating Dubois (a prospect) was better than Whyte beating Chisora, Parker or Rivas... This is making you come off as extremely one-eyed, btw. However, I agree with you that it is important to add different types of fighters to the resume. And at 6'4" and 245lbs, Whyte brings something different to Fury, even if Fury would be a big favourite. Though, I'm not sure who you are referring to when you say short plodder. @NEETzschean, see above
Whyte should accept 20% of the purse, he's not worth more than that IMO. What has Whyte done that's comparable to Fury's achievements? Brutally KOing Wilder twice, and whooping Wlad who was undefeated for 11 years? Whyte's best win is arguably Parker, who he went neck and neck with. He couldn't even beat Povetkin before he got Covid.
I wonder about the chances of Usyk/Joshua going ahead and there being a clear winner, and we are all waiting on a huge unification fight ... but oh, no !! ... it's suddenly held up by some WBC mandatory BS legal saga whatever, which could have been sorted out with a fight in early 2022 but wasn't.
Honestly I don't think Fury even cares about an opponent right now. He's focusing on family time and supporting Tommy. Once that's done, he will refocus next year.
Because if you have any sense of right and wrong you shouldn't want to reward Hearn and Whyte for being so outrageously corrupt. The Povetkin affair should have made things pretty obvious, if they weren't already. To recap, Povetkin KO'd Whyte in an advertised elimination bout, then had to do it again, by which point he'd been compromised by Covid. Then Whyte and Hearn pretended that nothing happened there. Even if Povetkin hadn't retired from old age, he wouldn't have got a rubber match to settle the eliminator, it would have been 1:1 and Whyte would have moved on to get the title shot. Why is anyone okay with that? And just in general, Whyte is a piece of garbage. From his headbutts in the Parker fight to his dodging of Pulev in Bulgaria because he wouldn't get Hearn advantage, to the Povetkin affair and much much more. So Fury is correct not wanting to give Whyte a massive payday and shot at the titles.
There's only one reason why I don't respect Fury. He is not man of his word. He say whatever, whenever and it means nothing to him. He could sign a contract to fight Whyte, but retire two weeks before the fight. Just like that. That is the reason why he will never be a great fighter, Every great fighter had consistency, he does not.
Povetkin v Whyte wasn't an eliminator bout though was it...so I don't know what you are whittering on about. It was a voluntary defence of Whyte's interim title. So it's unsurprising there was a rematch clause given he was finally due his title shot once Fury v Wilder 3 was resolved. This is most accurately reported record I have seen. It is only missing the part when Whyte fought an eliminator in 2016. Most of you should read it, so you can understand what it is you think you are complaining about: https://talksport.com/sport/boxing/...ander-povetkin-wbc-tyson-fury-anthony-joshua/ But don't let the facts get in the way of a good grumble, Morvidus p.s. and I think you mean FROM dodging Pulev TO beating Parker, given those are a directly linked sequence of events.
