Fury should be gagging to get Whyte in the ring

Fury is not a fighting champion. He's great when he actually gets in the ring, but history shows that he prefers to sit out and not fight.
I'm not expecting much from his next fight. If he manages to avoid the Whyte mandatory, I'm betting he will fight a bum claiming he needs a tune up. Then he will sit out for another year.

 

Is there any timeline set on this whyte arbitration?

Surely a 70-30 or 65-35 deal can be agreed for this fight if whyte truly believes he beats the champion

Its the best fight outside usyk and joshua but no way fury should wait about if this arbitration goes on and on

As for the fight, do whyte fans truly believe that whyte beats fury? After a feisty couple of rounds I can see this turning into one of the biggest beatdowns ever witnessed in a british boxing ring, as fury repeatedly peppers whytes gormless chops with 6 and 7 piece combinations in crystal clear HD before a global audience of millions

 

Betting odds typically better reflect reality than rankings, especially in the case of Whyte-Povetkin. Povetkin may have been 4th ranked for the rematch and Usyk may have been outside the top 10 but these rankings did not remotely reflect the reality of how formidable both men were. This is because the bookies place a lot of emphasis on relevant factors like age, wear and tear, illness and recent performances (rather than just results on paper).

Even with the KD given for Povetkin, Hunter would have still edged it on eyeonthering. I would have had Hunter winning 114-113 as well. But this was a 12 round war and the additional year of aging took a lot out of Povetkin. As even Whyte acknowledged, Povetkin had taken a large amount of damage in their first fight, so combined with his illness and an additional 6 months of aging in his early 40's, Povetkin looked like a corpse in the rematch. Say instead of the lowly ranked 41 year old Arreola coming off back to back losses in wars who Whyte expressed an interest in fighting after Povetkin, he'd fought the much higher ranked Charles Martin instead and lost a decision, before KO'ing Martin in the rematch. Whyte may well have still been top 10 ranked, possibly even top 5 with the bodies you cite but very few would regard him a serious contender. For myself and many others, this is the position Whyte is in after getting sparked by a shot Povetkin in Britain. This is why Fury opened as 1/6 against Whyte, because Whyte is not considered to be a serious contender or an impressive win.

The loss to Povetkin was terrible because Povetkin was a wide underdog, regarded as badly faded before the fight (Dave Allen was surprised by how bad Povetkin looked, saying he didn't expect Povetkin to be shot) and fighting in Whyte's backyard. Whyte was dominating the fight but then got sparked with one punch in the 5th round, despite taking very little damage to the head in the fight (most of Povetkin's success came with body shots). Conversely, Chisora was massively overperforming relative to the odds in both fights against Whyte. The first is regarded as a draw on eyeonthering, the second Chisora was winning but was harshly deducted 2 points for fouls by the referee, which may well have led to Whyte getting the KO with less than 1.5 rounds to go. And although Usyk fought a more worn version of Chisora, Chisora had been preparing for a very long time for Usyk. 2/3 of his prior opponents had been cruiser-esque southpaw movers! He would have been sparring southpaw movers regularly and had about 18 months to prepare for Usyk (the fight was delayed by the pandemic). Chisora had a fast start but by round 3 he had slowed down significantly and lost at least 8/10 rounds after 2. People gave Chisora a lot of credit and undermined Usyk because Usyk was expected to school Chisora 12-0 or stop him late.

In his next fight, Chisora gave Parker all he could handle and dropped him in the first 10 seconds of the fight. Eyeonthering had Chisora winning the fight by a point. Parker was clearly outboxing Whyte for the first and second round before the headbutt at the end of the 2nd, which turned 1 point for Parker into 2 points for Whyte and altered the flow of the fight by concussing Parker. What should have happened is the KD should have been overturned and Whyte should have lost a point for the concussive headbutt. Had this happened, Parker may very well have won the fight. But it's Parker, so I can't discount that he would have found a way to lose.

The merits of triangle theory would warrant an extended post in itself so this isn't the place for it. But I don't look at results purely on paper to determine who is better or performed the best. A clear 12 round UD where you take very little damage is usually better performance-wise against the same or similar opponent than an 11 round war than concludes with a KO in the 12th (though not in terms of entertainment).

Dubois is a prospect but so is Hrgovic and everyone on this forum and in the pros considers him more formidable than Chisora or Parker (who Hrgovic beat in the amateurs). Dubois was an undefeated SHW power puncher, highly rated on the British heavyweight scene. Fury and AJ regarded Joyce-Dubois as a 50-50 or were leaning Dubois. Okolie also ranked Dubois and Joyce above Whyte, who Okolie said he would beat. So the bookies had Dubois as a big favourite over Joyce, no doubt far more favoured than Parker would have been and Chisora would have been a big underdog vs Joyce. So I regard Dubois as a better win than any of Whyte's and it was an uncontroversial 10th round nomas win where Joyce was the B-side: no referee BS, no judging BS, no glove BS, no drug testing BS. Most people on this forum also believe that Joyce would beat Whyte and that Joyce is a tougher, less beatable opponent.

Whyte isn't really 6'4, he's closer to 6'2. He's visibly shorter than Parker, who is also (probably wrongly) billed as 6'4 and looked virtually no taller than Povetkin in the face offs, who is billed as 6'2. He'd be another short plodder on Fury's resume, like Chisora and Hammer.

 

I almost forgot how Whyte looked against Old washed up Maruisz Wach, in alot of the rounds he was getting jabbed to bits. Oh deary me...

 

Fury has fought a top 2-3 ranked HW, 90%+ KO ratio and 10 consecutive defence world champion 3 times in the last 3 years, along with 3 tune-up opponents and a fighter who is regarded as so dangerous that alleged top contender Whyte had to fake an injury to get out of fighting him.

Aside from Wilder, no HW in the sport has fought tougher and more dangerous competition over the last 3.5 years and since his comeback, Fury has fought more (7 times) than AJ (5) or Whyte (6). These criticisms are absurd.

 

Odds are not infallible but they tend to represent reality more accurately than rankings. If not, it would be the norm that fights were massively mispriced and the vast majority of gamblers wouldn't be losers. The authors of the book "Fightnomics" studied this and found that the odds are very accurate over the long-run. Even in the Joyce-Dubois fight, Dubois (the young aggressive power punching prospect who was blatantly favoured by Warren before the fight) was significantly up on the cards at the time of the 10th round quitjob! Had he possessed more heart and determination (which had not been tested and were unknown at the time) he may very well have got a gift decision.

I don't think that Matchroom were backing Hunter to win, I suspect that Hearn saw him as a threat to AJ (rightly or wrongly, probably wrongly) so he wanted him out of the picture. If they wanted to give him the win they could have easily done so seeing as most observers thought he did win and the punch stats clearly favoured him. I don't think Hunter is all that but the consensus was that KD or not, he beat 40 year old Povetkin and the additional year of aging plus the wear and tear of a 12 round war obviously weakened Povetkin further. It was also suspect to pick 41 year old Povetkin as Whyte's opponent rather than the much younger and fresher Hunter, who most believed had won the fight. It was a cowardly cherrypick gone wrong.

I refuse to give as much credit to fighters like Whyte, who consistently need favouritism from officials to scrape by opponents (in Whyte's case B/C level opponents) as I do to fighters who go to their opponents backyard as the B-side and overcome massive odds. I give Whyte less credit again because he's been chinned twice and turned down opportunities for a title shot. By all of these metrics and more, I prefer Joyce and regard him as more worthy.

I've already laid more cards on the table: I think Whyte is a pos, a B/C level fighter and don't want him getting a title shot against anyone. Hopefully the WBC will continue in the same vein and he'll lose again to another wide underdog. It's not like you are impartial either: you have your own biases in favour of Whyte, AJ etc. If Fury thinks the Whyte fight is in his interest he'll make it happen, if not it doesn't matter because Whyte isn't a legacy building win. Parker and Ruiz are very highly ranked as well and at least they have the cachet of being former world champions (and in Ruiz's case arguably having one of the best 5 wins in the division) without a loss to a big underdog but they aren't resume strengthening wins for Fury either.

 

Fury will ABSOLUTELY fight a tune up bum if he gets to avoid the Whyte fight next. Then if AJ wins, he will make negotiations impossible, just like before. But if Usyk wins, magically everything will go smooth and the fight will go ahead with no problems. That's because Fury believes he can beat Usyk. But Fury does not fully believe he can beat AJ, or Whyte for that matter. That's why he is acting the way he is now with the Whyte fight. I've seen through Fury for years now and i honestly don't understand why more fight fans don't see through his con. Ali was so good that they had to take his title in court. He fought in court to be able to fight in the ring. Fury has now had to be taken to court twice in 67 months JUST TO MAKE HIM FIGHT SOME ONE DECENT. Think about the two differences

 

Can’t give Fury credit for fighting Wilder LMAO
Stiverne came to LIE DOWN for wilder for a paycheck. He is the champ afterall.

jesus Anyone in the WBC would fight the champ. So outside of Wilder Fury fought BUMS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Top 60 ranked guys!!!! This is gods gift to boxing yeah? Nah. God doesn’t make mistakes.

Fury got floored by Cunningham, a relatively weak puncher who can't even KO frank Mir MMA guy last year... but Pulev smashed Mir to bits. Fury is beatable.

 

I don't follow your posts in detail but whenever we have debated, you have been (in my view) bending over backwards to defend Whyte or AJ. I can not like Whyte and still be honest about his merits, I rate him more highly in a historical context than 95% of this forum. I don't like his personality, the way he has conducted himself professionally or the politics surrounding him. I don't think beating Whyte adds anything of note to Fury's legacy and would prefer Whyte not to get the shot or the payday, especially as I believe Joyce is more deserving.

"To even imply both Fury and Wilder have better resumes than Joshua is such an extreme position to hold"

That's an extremely dogmatic view when there is no universally agreed upon standard to judge a fighter's body of work. For Fury the case is easy: he has 3 of the 4 best wins between them and 0 losses, AJ has 2 losses to wide underdogs with much lower rankings. For Wilder it's more difficult because AJ generally has better wins at the top end of his resume but he also has by far the worst loss. But since 2018, It's easy argue that Wilder has fought the stiffer competition: Ortiz, Fury, Breazeale, Ortiz, Fury, Fury > Parker, Povetkin, Ruiz, Ruiz, Pulev, Usyk.

 

Err... when you fight the best you get losses. It's inevitable. What's the point of being head and shoulders above the competition when the competition is shyte. Look at Ali's era, the best all fought each other multiple times.

Your god Fury is a false god, he fights the worst this era has to offer.

 

Funny how quickly Whyte's "sore shoulder" disappeared when the prospect of the Fury fight being made was looming large. And it'd be even funnier if the WBC fig their heels in and mandate Whyte vs Wallin as a final eliminator after Whyte tried to sidestep Wallin.