Old Holyfield=Old Wladmir Vitali=Wilder Tua=Chisora Whyte=Oquendo Let's be honest here, setting aside Byrd's career at lower weights, his best wins stack up to Fury's. Hoylfield wasn't a long reigning champ like Wladmir, but Wladmir wasn't exactly taking on a murderers row late in his career. The Hoylfield Byrd beat wasn't any worse than the gunshy, hesitant Wladmir Fury beat (and Byrd's win was a lot more convincing). Vitali was in a similar position to Wilder at the time: a tall, strong, but fairly untested HW champion. Very surprising loss. Tua and Chisora were the hard hitting, pressure fighting, meat-head contenders who never quite managed to win the championship. Whyte was the #1 contender, Oquendo was #2 and neither guy lived up to the expectations. Can someone tell me what Fury accomplished that makes him an ATG when his resume seems to be on par with Chris Byrd??? I'm all ears.
Holyfield was 2-2-2 in his last 6 fights before fighting Byrd whereas Wlad hadn't even come close to losing in over a decade before fighting Fury.
Fury arguably became lineal twice, so Byrd's resume is not better than his. It is still pretty close in fairness to Byrd!
Perfect example of how just listing names can be misleading Vitali = wilder? Vitali lost on an injury TKO wilder was soundly knocked out 2 of 3 fights in a trilogy. More fights more convincing wins. The holyfield vs wlad comparison is ridiculous as illustrated by other posters on here. Also this is not the entirety of their record. Fury has never been steamrolled like byrd was by ibeabuchi. They also have a common opponent in wlad and clearly fury did better against said common opponent. I like Chris Byrd also and most fighters can only dream of his resume. So its not really a shot against fury even if the resume are comparable. Also Byrd was never lineal.
This might be true to a person on the spectrum who can't understand why the Vitali and Holyfield wins don't mean much.
At the moment their resumes are comparable, since Fury’s lack of title defenses and inactivity is hard to overlook.
I don't think there's much parity, between Byrd's and Fury's resume, really. Byrd was blitzed by an unproven contender in Ibeabuchi - No such thing has happened to Fury, who remains undefeated. As has already been alluded to, Old Wlad was not as aged as Old Holyfield and had gone undefeated in over a decade, by the time Fury faced him - whereas, there's a good case for Old Holyfield having actually been shot to ****, after suffering multiple losses and poor performances, by the time Byrd fought him. Byrd's victories outside the default win he has over Vitali (who performed nothing like Wilder) and perhaps his only clean and clear win against Tua, have all been dull, close and quite controversial points wins, with his outing against Oquendo being no exception. Fury knocked the everlasting **** out of Whyte. Even Byrd's win over Tua is not as convincing as Fury's wins over Chisora. Nah - Fury's resume is better and marked by considerably better performances.
While this is true Wilder did floor Fury four times and I find Fury resume vs. Ring Magazine Ranked opponents beaten ( omitting his fights with old 38-39 year old men ) to be very thin. Byrd has defiantly fought much better in terms if Ring magazine raked opponents and IMO better names on his resume. But we must remember Fury's career isn't over yet! He could fight and beat or lose to Usyk or Joshua. I won't mention upcoming 3rd fight vs a 38 year old man who isn't ranked, except to say he should whip him. A loss to a fighter like that would really shake up his legacy. And hurt Wilder's too.
You make decent points but i don't agree with the Holyfield/Wladimir comparison, and you know i'm not a fan of Fury. Holyfield had lost 2 of his last 4 fights and was coming off an abysmal trilogy vs Ruiz, where as despite Wladimir showing some signs of slowing down vs Jennings. Still hadn't looked like losing in years and was a long reigning champion, also correct me if i'm wrong but wasn't Fury the underdog aswell ? Also one final point Byrd's win over Oquendo was very controversial which many had him losing, where as Fury beat Whyte in one sided fashion with a great closing statement with the KO. So the context of those wins also have to be taken into consideration. Just like Byrd won on an injury vs Vitali which isn't as impressive as say, Fury dominating Wilder in their 2nd meeting.
Vitali suspiciously never seemed interested in avenging the loss. Fury won 2 and drew once. He did not bust Wilder at all in the first fight, he's the one who got busted and got a generous count to survive long enough for a draw. The point was, Wilder and Vitali were of a similar level in terms of achievements and h2h threat at the time.
Lol, so the Wladmir Fury fought was the same Wladmir who dominated guys like Povetkin, Haye, Chambers, Peter, etc? Wladmir was hanging onto his championship by a thread when Fury beat him in an extremely boring performance. Wladmir was gunshy, hesitant, and wouldn't open up in the Fury fight, which is the complete opposite of how he was during this decade long reign confidently pumping his jab, landing 1-2's, going for the KO, etc. Stop pretending it was the same Wladmir. That win over Wladmir wasn't much better than Byrd beating a past his prime Hoylfield.
The fact it's close at all is worrying. That's all I'm saying. The fact Byrd's resume is even remotely close to Fury's should remove him from any top 10 ATG discussions.
We're not talking about hiccups or losses or how their careers went. We're just talking about their best wins and the quality of the opponents. I'm well aware Byrd got destroyed by guys like Ike. What?!? Byrd embarrassed Tua. That was one of his best performances!