I don't think you'd too often sees as much skill on display between a 220 lbs fighter and one that is 240-250 lbs as the Usyk-AJ fights. So much effort has been put on ridiculing AJ that it has been forgotten what excellent fights they were, especially the second one. I'd take those over Lewis-Holy every day of the week. Holy-Bowe is a different story, though... Those are legit classics. But Fury's fights are rarely a thing of beauty. Fury has been terribly overrated in some aspects and maybe that will end now. His ability to utilise his size advantages has by many been mistaken for some kind of p4p boxing skills. If he had been Usyk's size but the same in every other aspect, he'd probably not even be among the top 30 HWs today.
He never should've struggled with Wilder in the first place. People made a thousand excuses when he was brutally dropped twice in the first fight due to his inactivity heading into the first fight. Somehow they managed to spin the narrative that Fury was the one who should be praised. That Fury boxed circles around Wilder and simply got caught a few times, then showed "incredible heart and bravery" finishing the fight on his feet. "Imagine what an in shape and focused Fury will do". Fury strangely delayed the rematch wanting more tune ups while Wilder was ready to run it back immediately. They had a rematch, and to be fair, Fury did make adjustments and battered him. Not much to say to defend Wilder, but he did take a bad shot to the ear messing up his equilibrium and never recovered. The same people who praised Fury for surviving brutal shots in the 1st fight gave Wilder no credit for going out on his shield, surprise surprise. They then said Wilder was "a big dosser who got exposed by Fury who was robbed in the first fight and easily won the rematch after shaking off the ring rust". Once again, Wilder wanted an immediate rematch and Fury refused, even being drug to court and forced to honor his contract. So we get the 3rd fight. Somehow, this "dosser" who has no skill, no ring IQ or fundamentals, who was brutally stopped in the previous fight losing every round, this same guy managed to drop Fury twice AGAIN and drug Fury into deep waters. This inevitably led to the damage control from team Fury who realized they dug their own graves tearing Wilder's resume apart and saying he had no skill. Wilder was literally the best 2 wins Fury had and the only elite prime opponent he beat (Wladmir was old as hell and gunshy). So to answer your question, it's hard to say how much mileage Fury should get out of the Wilder matches. You can't call Wilder a "bum slayer, a guy with poor skill who just relies on power and athleticism", etc, then in the same breath give Fury all kinds of praise for beating that same opponent. What makes things worse is he went life and death with Wilder in 2/3 attempts and nearly got KOd in 2 of those fights. What did those matches tell us about Fury other than the fact he can get off the floor to win, he was mentally tough, could stick and move for multiple rounds with shifty jerky jerky tactics, could make adjustments in his gameplan, etc? He shouldn't have been on the floor in the first place. He shouldn't have needed to make adjustments against a limited guy like Wilder. Those are the elephants in the room. If you want to elevate Fury's h2h ability, you have to elevate Wilder and most people don't want to do that. The obvious solution is for Fury to get his ass in the ring and fight more opponents with some skill to expand his resume.
Yes this is true. BUT!!! By the time Louis vs Galento was over, there was absolutely no doubt about who the winner was. In fact, if anything, Louis angry by Galento's comments prior to the fight, wanted to punish him for it. And carried him for a few rounds. If Louis had come out the way he did for Schmeling #2, there wouldn't have been a 3rd rd for Galento to land a lucky punch.
Another thing is that Wilder is a bean pole so Fury could overwhelm Wilder with his extra strength and clinch game to wear out the slim Wilder. Ngannou on the other hand is built like a tank and Fury couldn't bully Ngannou on the inside who's has a pretty good clinch game himself I'm guessing from his MMA training. I think people are overlooking a few things here that when Fury can't overwhelm opponents who are as strong as him on the inside he looked vulnerable. I wonder how he would deal with Zhang who's built like a tank aswell, and has the Southpaw stance which baffled Fury a few times last night when Ngannou applied that stance.
Yeah that's kinda the argument I often make here when I point out the crappy and inconsistent form of some of the holy figures revered in Classic but I usually get shouted down. If you want a fighter "at his best" then that's Fury from Wilder 2 and he looked monstrous in that one. As for the rest of your argument I agree with it.
Does anyone else remember Jeri Ryan in that suit she used to wear on that Star Trek show? I sure do. And atheists say there is no God.
Miniq- Is n't that some kind of long-running performance art trolling thing? Acting like some kind of overexcited boyband fan? Hard to believe it's genuine.
1- No matter how you see Fury he is a world class boxer, you may think he is overrated (which I agree) but that doesn't matter, he is the lineal world champion. 2- Ngannou is a world class FIGHTER too ! He is not a grappler so he is a WORLD CLASS STRIKER (yeah I know boxing purists don't like that word) Ngannou KOED world class Kickboxers before, so he is not Lebron James getting in the ring and fighting. He is a fighter, a champion, going to fight in a different ruleset but used to to limelight of a Big FIGHT and used to trade punches with other big fighters... Boxing elitists need to understand that MMA fighters can trade punches, he still lost but he trained his hands for years, he is used to it, not much of what he saw was totally unkown to him. Ngannou didn't learn Boxing yesterday, again, he KOED a former K1 champion and a former kickboxing champion (Rozenstruik). And that does not mean kickboxing is bull****. Fury should have beat him more easily, but those people that liked to dismiss MMA are the ones overreacting, and it is because they just don't get it. Boxing is part of MMA, a guy like Ngannou made his career using his hands (in other words, using Boxing). What Ngannou saw yesterday was not a completely different sport to him. This was more like a world class futsal player going to play football in the grass pitch, some can do very easily the transition, NO DOUBT, it has been done before !
How many ten round Marquis of Queensbury rules fights did he have against professional opposition coming into last night again ?
Doesn't matter that much in the end. He defended punches, threw punches, landed punches, got hit in the face... his whole career, that is the part that matter the most, in that he had experience enough. The first time Leon Spinks fought 15 rounds he beat Ali.