Anyone else desperate to see Wilder against someone good?

Yes absolutely, it would put the Fury fights into better perspective.

 

He probably won't fight Parker because its his mate. Ruiz is going to be an easy fight even though he can bang. AJ is just for money!
Says a lot about the complete waster that Fury is. Insult to his fans and boxing.

 

Wilder should come back to the UK and have a few fights here.

After all, the big heavyweights fights for him are all mostly British.

Whyte or AJ (hopefully get to see both) would be brill.

 

Fair point.

I made an assumption that the top 5 of the 90s were Holyfield, Lennox, Foreman, Tyson, and Morrison. Obviously, these rankings fluctuated throughout the decade, and of course there's room for debate. But just to give you an idea, here are the fights between those 5:

Holyfield fought: Foreman, Tyson, Tyson, Lewis, Lewis (did not fight Morrison) - FIVE fights against the top 5
Lewis fought: Morrison, Holyfield, Holyfield, Tyson (did not fight Foreman) - FOUR fights against the top 5
Tyson fought: Holyfield, Holyfield, Lewis (did not fight Foreman or Morrison) - THREE fights against the top 5
Foreman fought: Holyfield, Morrison (did not fight Lewis or Tyson) - TWO fights against the top 5
Morrison fought: Foreman, Lewis (did not fight Holyfield or Tyson) - TWO fights against the top 5

Yes, you could argue that some of these fights did NOT take place when it mattered the most, like most post-prison Tyson fights.

If we take today's top 5 to be AJ, Fury, Usyk, Wilder, and Ruiz, we'd have:

AJ fought: Ruiz, Ruiz, Usyk, Usyk (has not fought Fury or Wilder) - FOUR fights against the top 5
Fury fought: Wilder, Wilder, Wilder (has not fought AJ, Usyk, or Ruiz) - THREE fights against the top 5
Wilder fought: Fury, Fury, Fury (has not fought AJ, Usyk, or Ruiz) - THREE fights against the top 5
Usyk fought: AJ, AJ (has not fought Fury, Wilder, or Ruiz) - TWO fights against the top 5
Ruiz fought: AJ, AJ (has not fought Fury, Usyk, or Wilder) - TWO fights against the top 5

So, overall, the total number of matchups between top 5 fighters is pretty close when comparing the two eras. HOWEVER, i'd make two counterpoints:

1. All of the top 5 in the 90s fought at least 2 different fighters in the top 5. So far, in today's era, only AJ has fought 2 different fighters in the top 5, all the rest have only fought 1 other fighter in the top 5. But of course, this era isn't over yet, so the numbers may come out ahead for this era compared to the 90s.

2. i'd also argue that there were also a lot more top tier quality fighters beyond the top 5 in the 90s that a lot of the top 5 fighters also fought, like Riddick Bowe, Razor Ruddock, Michael Moorer, Ray Mercer, Oliver McCall, and maybe Andrew Golota. I don't think you can say the same about today's HW era, or at least not yet. Sure, this could be debatable. I don't feel like debating it, but i'd guess that boxers #6 through #15 of the 90s were better than boxers #6 through #15 today. Most of the other fighters in the top 15 or so of the HW division today are either medioce and forgettable, or they're up-and-comers (like Joe Joyce, Jared Anderson, Frank Sanchez, and Filip Hrgovic, who haven't fought any of the top 5.) But again, this is probably debatable.

Perhaps a more worthwhile argument would be whether the heavyweights of the 90s ultimately fought more quality opposition at a higher frequency.

 

Anyone else desperate to see Wilder against someone good?

I can't say that I am. Sure AJ vs Wilder would be nice but as far as desperation well.... if someone offered me a tape right now of the bout I'd part with 5$ to get to see it, not sure if that meets the standard for desperation.

 

My assumption would be Lewis, Holyfield, Bowe, Tyson, Moorer. And aside from Holyfield, they didn’t fight or fight when it mattered. But your list works out similarly, albeit with more opponent variety than mine. One problem with the present top 5 is it omits Wlad, who fought Fury and Joshua. Those were massive fights in this era, I would argue that Fury beating Wlad was the end of the previous era and the first fight of this one. And as you rightly point out, this era isn’t over. Fury may well fight Ruiz next for example and either Fury or Wilder will fight Usyk, possibly both. Joshua will be in the mix too unless he is too broken now and retires. So it’s very possible this era comes out ahead of the 90’s here. Your second point is very subjective and not backed up by results. The counterclaim would likely be that Rahman lost to Ruiz and Maskaev when past prime, that McCall was past prime when Williamson and Gomez beat him, that McCline caught Grant and Briggs on bad nights or whatever etc. But to me, these are just excuses. You can say Zhang for example is “mediocre” but he’s a silver medalist with great size, heart, a lot of toughness and a southpaw banger to boot. Seeing as Moorer and Byrd weren’t even cruisers and had plenty of success, I don’t think it reasonable to discount Zhang or Wallin and many others.

 

I think your using the term list very liberally.

Ortiz has never beaten anyone good only some decent at best fighters and lost to the two guys that are above that level.

 

Wilder literally admitted to rejecting a fight with AJ.

 

Meh he fought his mate chisora three times!

 

And AJ literally admitted to turning down 50mil to fight Wilder.

 

True but I didn't say anything contrary to that. You said AJ didn't want to fight Wilder, well he had the offer from AJ and rejected it, literally saying he will never fight AJ regardless how much they offer.

As far as I remember wilder team couldn't actually finance the 50m for the fight that they said? Immaterial however like i said.

 

I raced Usain Bolt and came second, running 12 seconds flat. Am I the second best 100m runner of this era?

Wilder has fought noone, even Fury's resume is completely paper thin with his ducking the Wlad rematch, AJ, and Usyk.

 

LITERALLY.

 

Fury and Wilder fought each other but noone else.
Ruiz fought AJ. AJ also fought Usyk. The version of Parker that beat Ruiz and fought AJ is long gone, he was promising then.
Wlad is the key common fighter, who lost to both Fury and AJ.
There are no answers at HW until the east (non-nutters) and west (nutcases) conference decide to fight each other.

 

Good point but he's still a scammer, scamming his fans for PPV.