Imam is up there. Distinctly remember people saying he had the power of Hearn's and the defensive of Mayweather. Granados was +900 to win straight in that bout... I remember because I had a hundred bucks on it.
Fury needs to have an honorable mention. Best win is an old Vlad and Wilder. This man has been called an ATG with, in my opinion, an equally atrocious resume as Wilder up until recently. He fought Usyk, so at least he gets an A for effort.
George in his second career couldn't stop Alex Stewart who was not that "oft" stopped, 7 times in 50 odd fights and you're right that doesn't show us Georges real power but let's not forget for example the beating George put on the atg Joe Frazier. Does Wilder have anywhere near that level of win? Go check Foreman's record he knocked some very good opponents out, then check Wilders and tell us one opponent that Wilder ko'd that anybody in the current top 10 couldn't knock out. Wilders power was hugely overated on the back of knocking out a lot of very lowly ranked opponents a lot of whom were carefully selected for their fragile and "oft" pre cracked chins.
Sounds like the kind of record padding against warm bodies Foreman made a second career out of... Guy fought a blown up light heavyweight Mexican in Mijangos, footballers with delusions of grandeur in Jimmy Ellis, and the worst versions that we EVER saw of fighters like a 222 pound Qawi, shot Cooney, and a drug addled Bert Cooper fresh off a bender. This match between Foreman opponents sums it up pretty well. This content is protected
Wilder was overhyped, AJs resume was overhyped. No one was overhyping Wilders resume. Or Furys for that matter. AJs resume was represented as something different when it wasn't. AJs resume is mostly either recycled Wlad/Fury/Wilder opponents. The main exceptions to this are Joseph Parker a win that got its value from beating Wilder five years later and Andy Ruiz who beat Joshua the first time. His recent boost in reputation came because he beat two fighters who gave Fury a tough time. His whole resume is built on circular logic and double standards. Ortiz is old and not a credible win but Povetkin and Pulev? Thats totally different apparently. Wilder and Furys competition was subpar but AJ had to beat them to assert dominance? AJ has 4 losses. If the Dubois rematch goes forward 3 will have been rewarded with title shots.
I still think it's AJ. Hype was unreal. All the fans were looking at him like some kind of god level boxer.
He got two early knockdowns and coasted off that though Stewart mounted a comeback. Foreman only scored three knockdowns after this and this was the final multi knockdown round of Foremans career. Wilder knocked down the second heaviest HW champ ever 4 times when outweighed by 40 pounds. He has the KO rate record among all those who've ever fought for the HW title. Lots of manufactured records and shorter careers there. I don't think he needs a win like that to be in the discussion.
Fury was knocked down by Cunningham, also when he had a 44lb weight advantage, and was knocked down by a 37 year old mma fighter in his boxing debut. Knocking down Fury really isnt the thing youre making it out to be.