In the three years between Wlad-Fury and Wilder-Fury 1, who was the best active HW?

Poll

 

Anthony Joshua, quite clearly. Between Fury-Wlad and Fury-Wilder 1, he beat Povetkin, Whyte, Takam, Parker and Wlad himself, though obviously the latter was a fossil at the time.

Wlad only had one fight after Fury, losing to Joshua and then retiring. Luis Ortiz was beating on the shells of Jennings and Thompson prior to losing to Wilder. Aside from Ortiz, Wilder was feasting on some of the worst title opponents ever seen in the division. Povetkin was good, but aging, and I think his loss to Joshua cements AJ as the best of this group during that period.

 

Bodybuilder, but he lasted for a short time.

 

Tyson Fury...

& to this day

Tyson Fury

There only has ever been Tyson Fury and there only ever will be Tyson Fury

 

Agreed, no one else could rob John McDermott blind and lose to a guy who 0 professional boxing fights. A truly awesome set of achievements.

 

@Redbeard7 You're going to have a load of people state Joshua was the best in that time period and you're then going to write tedious convoluted reasons why they're wrong and someone like Wilder or Ortiz should be considered the best.

Admit it.

 

Fury didn’t lose to McDermott. It was a hard scrappy fight with a lot of close rounds but Fury won. Mind you it was also only his 8th fight I believe and 21 years old, fighting for the British title.

That old guy Jim Watt was going on how Fury was going on about how Fury was losing the fight but even he started to turn around by the end of the fight.

 

AJ was the best fighter in HW from the time he beat Whyte up to the Ruiz loss.

 

This vote IMO (and by the voting results) should come down to: Anthony Joshua or Deontay Wilder.
According to the results of those two, Anthony Joshua is better, because in that period he won: Charles Martin (second-class heavyweight, but he was the belt holder) by knockout, Wlad by knockout, Parker, and Povetkin by knockout.
These are certainly better results; wins, resume, compared to those made by Wilder in that period.
But we don't know if Tyson Fury was the best heavyweight when he was inactive.

 

"The shells of Jennings"

Idiot.

 

No.

I made the poll to unravel a contradiction: most say that Joshua was the best heavyweight during this time period but also retrospectively say that Wilder would have beaten him prior to the Ruiz loss.

 

"These are certainly better results; wins, resume,"

Yet Joshua was on the cusp of losing to Andy Ruiz. People don't really believe that Joshua was the best at the time, most now pick Wilder to beat him at any point.

 

I had this debate with a poster a few weeks ago. They were adamant Wilder was the best during this time I explained to them clearly it was AJ.

I don't remember who it was, or I'd tag them so they could see this thread.

 

Joshua based on resume but I always thought Wilder would win by sudden one-shot sleepage. Kinda still do. We'll see what he has left against Parker

 

This is why the poll is interesting. Most claim that Joshua was the best heavyweight back then but ask them "would he have beaten Wilder?" and they say "No, he'd have got KO'd":

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/joshua-vs-wilder-in-late-2018-who-would-have-won.713404/

18-8 Wilder

So do they really believe Joshua was the best? Do they actually rate his resume and if they do, why don't they pick Joshua on that basis?

They weren't picking Wilder at the time, the proportion has virtually reversed since:

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/anthony-joshua-vs-deontay-wilder.615762/

34-16 Joshua