Fury was interviewed after the AJ-Ngannou fight, and says he wants to win his 2 fights against Usyk, then beat AJ twice before retiring. Let’s assume that AJ fights twice in the meantime, beating Hrgovic and Parker and picking up the IBF belt. Where would you rank Fury in the all-time heavyweight list if he could add Usyk x 2 and AJ x 2 to his resume, then retire undefeated and undisputed?
He'd retire the best of his era, but this isn't the best of era's and he's been horribly inconsistent over his career, in head to head mythical match ups you'll have people saying things like "Wait you think the guy that should have lost to McDermott and Ngannou beats this fighter?" or "What the Fury who got bounced off the canvas like a basketball against Wilder who couldn't win a minute of a round vs Parker and ducked AJ?" I don't think even with that, he'd crack my top 10 ATG heavyweights. One aspect of rating a fighters legacy is dominance and while he'd retire clearly the best of his era, he never really dominated the era say like Wlad did or Tyson did in the 80's because he could look so bad in one fight and then so good in the next, that lack of consistency goes against him and in mythical match ups he'd be criticised for that inconsistency, which I think is a bit harsh but I see it all the time when assessing fighters, people look at fighters at their worst as well as their hypothetical best and when Fury was bad, he was really bad and needed some favourable judges to keep him undefeated.
H2H you'd have to put him towards the top of the list. I don't know enough about boxing history to speak to where he should be on the ATG list.
Fury has shown quite clearly over his career that if he hasn't got a target, a man who people think he can't beat then he's not interested...but when he does get up for a fight he's pretty indomitable. Usyk fight is different because he's got shot elbows now so he has more to overcome than ever...not to ignore Usyk's own issues which he keeps under wraps.
His elbows are busted because he keeps throwing them as weapons and not even doing any damage with them, a la Ngannou
Strange question . Where do you rank the undisputed AND undefeated hw world champion who cleared the entire division ? No human before reached this
Some people rank Liston as a top 10 heavyweight all time. It wouldn’t even be close between Fury and Liston assuming he gets Usyk and Joshua twice on his resume. What about Tyson? Frazier? Both would still have more contender depth than Fury sure but in terms of elite wins? In that case I don’t really see too much reason for Fury to be outside the range of Holyfield, Marciano, Lewis, Foreman or even Holmes unless you really value defenses or depth of resume. Do I think Fury actually will beat Usyk and Joshua twice? No, it’s just a hypothetical.