In my view, he's a bit better than McKean. A shot Whyte is still a level above some of the domestic heavies McKean has struggled against, and I'd expect Franklin to outbox McKean if they fought. Still, do you think otherwise? Would be interested to hear your take.
Nobody believed that before he fought Fury and Wallin’s hype is based on Fury have an “off night”, Wallin haven’t done anything else of note.
The only way I see this fight making any sense (not sense as in its justifiable, sense as in... what was anyone thinking making this) is if AJ told Hearn he flat out isnt going to give Whyte the payday, and is fighting the loser just to rub it in Whytes face, out of pure spite. Because its obvious that before those remarks, they were all angling for an AJ vs Whyte fight. And AJ vs Whyte is one of the few fights that actually make sense for AJ at this stage, unfortunately. So, thats the only way this fight makes sense to me. I seen Whyte make some insulting remarks about AJ a couple weeks back and AJ must have taken them personally and wants to freeze Whyte out of a payday.
It's the most important fight in Franklin's career. I doubt he will ever get another chance to fight a big name like AJ again. Thus, Franklin will be extra motivated and train accordingly. I think Franklin will win by KO.
Ruiz is extremely limited; he scraped past a 43 year old Ortiz with 2 KO defeats and was outboxed by Parker of all people. Wallin would take Ruiz to school. Whyte clearly believes that Wallin would beat him: he's ducked him twice now (6 months pre-Fury and recently to fight Franklin) despite having home and A-side advantage. Povetkin went 50-50 over 10 rounds with Takam, got an A-side decision against a considerably lighter Huck and went into survival mode against Wlad. The one AJ fought was coming off a war with David Price and would have a highly competitive fight with Hughie next. Wallin's best win is Breazeale but he showed a higher level against Fury and Povetkin's best win is arguably Whyte, who thus far won't even fight Wallin.
Breazeale is AJ's 8th best opponent beaten, took AJ 7 rounds in the days when he had maximum confidence and Wallin schooled Breazeale. Whyte blatantly ducked Wallin despite having home and A-side advantage. Nobody had much idea of Wallin's level before he fought Fury as he hadn't had the opportunity to step up, so how is it surprising that he wasn't rated highly? Fury may have had an off night but even on an off-night, I reckon he wouldn't have had nearly as much trouble with a Ruiz, Chisora, Whyte etc.
McKean is a bit more dangerous than Franklin because he's much taller and harder punching and a southpaw. McKean would probably lose to Franklin but he has a better chance of upsetting AJ than Franklin does. This isn't to say that McKean is an especially big puncher (he's certainly not) but he did stop the reasonably durable journeyman Jonnie Rice whereas Franklin couldn't stop uber glass chinned journeyman Pavel Sour over 10 rounds.
