Do you still view Fury as an all time Head to Head fighter?

Yes I down played him, but Fury when focused is an absolute nightmare and for all of usyks wins, his fights against Fury will be his defining glory

Fury would be dangerous in any era
He is an underachiever somewhat with his resume, but Fury is a great fighter when he is on

Great, great wins by usyk that elevates his greatness

 

Very comfortably beat Whyte who has wins over Parker, Chisora and Povetkin. Even AJ in amateurs. No other heavy has easily beat Whyte.

Also very comfortably beat Chisora who’s gave a bunch of top heavies a real tough night.

Wallin was really impressive also. Cuts happen at heavyweight. The likes of an AJ or Dubois might be inclined to quit. Fury hung in there and got the win with an awful cut

 

I never bought into the Fury 'top 10 ATG' hype because, simply, his resume was not strong enough to put him anywhere near the likes of Ali, Lewis, Tyson, Holmes etc. But that's not to say he isn't skilled in a P4P HW sense. I think he moves well for a big guy, has great fight IQ, and terrific powers of recovery. I'm sure, on his day, he could give some of the ATGs an interesting night. But P4P and ATG through a body of work are two different things. I think Fury was capable of much more in his career

 

Fury would be a real maverick in any era, but not the best. This era was his to claim though, but Usyk was just too good.

 

This.

 

His best win by a mile was Wlad... Wlad was old, his motivation for that fight is questionable and Fury fought a very ugly fight - and it wasn't exactly a classic dominant performance at that.

That win against Wlad is soured, more than anything else, by just how keen Wlad was for a rematch and how keen Fury was to avoid it - it's easy to read into that what a likely outcome would've been.


Then where do you go for the next best win?
It's either the most protected champion in modern history, who arguably never beat a single legit contender (and undeniably ducked several that were available and keen)... Or it's an inconsistent contender who'd been sparked badly recently already.


On top of all that...
He got very lucky through his career to avoid having multiple defeats to his name - and not the standard heavyweight defeats where the champ gets caught napping and gets sparked by a huge punch (as happened to Lewis) but by putting in poor performances and getting gifts from refs and judges alike.


Now this isn't to say he wasn't a talented fighter, he was (and still is), but there's an awful lot of narrative building around him that's very generous in ignoring inconvenient truths.

And yes, the above is exaggerated... But less so than the "dominated Wlad, smashed up a dangerous champion, best of the rest by far" narrative.

 

Derek Chisora has 13 losses lmao

 

I've never viewed Fury as an ATG H2H Heavyweight even before the losses to Usyk he's simply had too many poor performances against lesser fighters and his resume hasn't got anywhere near enough quality.

I think a prime Fury could still be troubling for alot of good Heavyweights from the past but he wouldn't be in my top 10 for the best H2H Heavyweights of all time he's more like at the lower end of top 20 or just outside it.

 

Yes, and his 2 fights against Usyk (a bonafide ATG) prove he is a H2H beast historically.

1st fight: came within a round of winning the fight
2nd fight: popular consensus is Fury fought a good fight and won 4-5 rounds, with some close rounds in the fight

Anyone who downplays Fury would also be downplaying Usyk, and I choose to believe both of them are up there historically ability-wise, even if their resumes are a bit weaker than in the 70s/90s.

 

You could pick and choose poor performances like that for any fighter historically to downplay their ability.

The two you just named, Ali and Lewis, had off-nights too. But clearly you don’t judge Lewis off his McCall and Rahman fights alone, so why bring up McDermott and Ngannou in an all-time discussion?

 

Because people do this every time...

 

I won't name names, because I don't want to come across as an ass licker, but there is one who is an absolute credit to the forum. There are a few tbf, but this guy never let's bias sway his judgement. His knowledge on hw boxing is extremely sound and his arguments are backed by facts, not biased fanboyism

You know who you are, keep up the good work! It's refreshing to see someone who speaks truth

 

You can also pick and choose good performances. There are probably a lot of fighters that would be a handful for anyone on their best night, guys like Ray Mercer for example. If I’m judging head to head greats I’m looking at guys that consistently took on and beat high level opponents, Fury isn’t in that bucket. Best you could say in his favour is that he would be awkward due to his dimensions, but that’s it.