Can any heavyweight from history realistically beat Tyson Fury?

Remind me when Cleveland Williams won the WBC Title? Or drew with the best heavyweight in the world, and dropped him 4 times. I'm a huge Williams fan as you know, but even I'll concede Wilder is a lot more than the "Cleveland Williams of his time."

 

How many ranked men did Wilder beat? How many did Cleveland beat? Should show u ur answer. I don’t even know it to be honest but I’m guessing they’re on par. Winning alphabet titles is literally not an accomplishment in my book. Littered w not talents through out the history. Linear or nothing. Can only be one champ in my eyes.

 

Technically a minority only has to be less than half of the whole - but in my readings there’s a lot of people who favour Usyk.

I favour him also but can appreciate his being a justified underdog - at least on paper, technically.

It’s unfortunate that it’s a realistic forecast for Fury to lie on/smother Usyk when and where he can.

That ain’t boxing but it is often a choice tactic among the oversized HWs who hold appreciable size advantage of their opposition.

They have enough size advantages otherwise to be getting on with, advantages that can be conventionally applied - but they opt to hold, clutch and lie on their smaller opponents also.

A real joy to watch and hardly indicative of pure boxing domination.

Usyk and his team should really make a point of highlighting the potential for such tactics and dissuading same - very publicly, which might or might not impact on and influence Fury and/or the appointed ref.

IIRC, Jones Jr was quite vocal about Ruiz not being allowed to manhandle him - and Jay Nady accommodated Roy very nicely in that regard.

LOL, that was Ruiz’s clearly understood trump card - his size and the ability to manhandle Roy - with that card removed from the deck, well, we all saw how that went down…..

Of course Fury has a lot more going for him otherwise than Ruiz, but it’d be nice to see a “clean” fight when he and Usyk do eventually get into the ring - and it would, of course, lend to a greater fight overall, imo.

 

David Price

 

No offense, but I love how there are people so biased toward modern, fat and lazy fighters that they actually think Tyson Fury could beat Joe Louis.

 

My friend, I hope you're joking (you do have some knowledgeable, quite respectable posts in your name), because this shows a deficiency in boxing education.

 

Yes, that would seem to be a part of the problem.

 

People talk about him being the best since Lewis but I think Lewis may be overrated H2H. Were the guys Lewis beat really any better than the best guys Fury has beaten so far?

Tyson was shot when he fought Lewis, Holyfield was past prime and Vitali has a pretty bad resume like Wilder which makes it hard to rate him.

 

Was Vitali Klitschko better than Wilder? Sure. Would Lewis have beaten Fury? My money says so.

This raising up of Fury is a bit premature. He still needs to beat a Usyk and Joshua or Ruiz to get anywhere near Lewis.

He beat an old Wlad. The Wilder fights are the true measure of his worth and he showed courageousness, resilience...he is a great indubitably a great fighter.

But he has yet to break past the lower rung on my ATG list, guys like Bowe and VItali are ahead of him at 14 and 15 (for good reason).

Again I see Norton (at #20 ATG) quite possibly beating him given his style. Fury didn't have quite the punching power to knock him back, and Ken was generally anathema to a boxer with Fury's style.

 

Without factoring skill, since you were ONLY referring to height, Joe reached 6'6 & 1/2" Buddy Baer without any trouble. Forgetting the hype, Fury is only about 1/2" to 1" taller than that. There's also Tyson's big fat gut available to Joe.

 

Holyfield was rated the number 1 Heavyweight in the world when Lewis fought him. Plus Lewis has over a dozen solid/good wins on his resume outside of his best wins. Which is about x2 more than Fury has.

 

I love Tyson Fury but threads like this absolutely ruin it for me.

I think Tyson was very lucky to have fought an aged Wlad who didn't know better of him. I think if that 2015 Fury goes up against Wlad a couple of years earlier, he doesn't win or at least it's very close. The current Fury is better and more active, but I think he knew better than to open up vs. Wlad--who is a MUCH more precise puncher than Wilder. So we can start there. I think Fury could lose to Wlad if Wlad was more polished and active. Steve Cunningham nearly knocked Fury's block off with a crazy overhand, you're telling me Joe Louis couldn't hypothetically find a punch, then? Lennox Lewis couldn't pop a right hand in the same space Wilder found? Would Lennox let Fury off the hook or finish? I wouldn't favor him over my whole top 10, but Fury's size, speed, and skill make him very interesting for sure. I think Larry would handle a battle of jabs just fine, actually, and I don't think Fury would be able to bully him either.

When people mythmake guys before they've built a proper resume, you definitely put them in a rough spot on the other end when the adjustment comes. The guy has fought TWO heavyweight titleists EVER. AJ has a more fleshed out resume for god's sake!

Resume-wise Fury's really lacking (in terms of all time heavyweights) and even in the ring he's had some dicey moments.

* To me, the only solid names Fury has on his resume atp are Whyte, Wilder, and Wlad (Wallin lol).

*Really inactive just a total superfight champion, I think him bagging the belt vs. Wlad and then going on a binge instead of being a champ says where his mind was. He won the lottery that night vs. Wlad, and not many expected it. And it was a crap fight that was totally the worst and a fitting way for Wlad to lose his title.

*Cut bad and beat up a bit vs. Wallin, dropped bad 4x vs. Wilder, nearly knocked out by Cunningham, punched himself in the face with an uppercut that one time.

*6 title fights in total, 3 against Wilder. Only fought 2 men who have captured the title. Holyfield fought 2 titleists in Valuev and Botha (lol) in his last 5 fights at 64 years old.

*17% of his fights since reaching world level have been against Dereck Chisora.

* 73% of his competition since nabbing the British title: Dereck Chisora, Steve Cunningham (old, CW), Sefer Seferi (??), Tom Schwarz (?), Otto Wallin (could still be decent), Joey Abell (???), Vinny Maddalone (??), Nikolai Firtha (?), Martin Rogan (local guy), Neven Pajkic (????), Kevin Kingpin Johnson (not that great but not that bad), Christian Hammer (not good, decent win at the time), Francesco Pianeta (??). I really don't know a couple of these guys at all. It's nearly impossible to find someone as anonymous on Holyfield/Lewis/Tyson's record at the world stage.

 

Lewis's resume is far deeper.

Vitali, Holyfield, Ruddock, Golata, Mercer, Tua, Morrison, Rahman, Tucker, Briggs, Bruno. Off the top of my head, the 11th best fighter Lewis beat, Bruno, was better than the 3rd best Fury has beaten so far, Whyte.

McCall, Grant, Botha, Mason, Akinwande. I'm not even sure the 3rd best boxer Fury has beaten was as good as the 16th best Lewis beat.