Don't blame Fury's decision to fight Ngannou on "the boxing world". 99% of the observers were critiquing this fight from the start and saw it as a way to duck Usyk.
For me it damaged his reputation hugely. And not because he performed so poorly against a pro boxing debutant. To me, the damage was done because it was a blatant cash-in and duck of his real test at the time, Oleksandr Usyk. Remember that fans were clamouring for a Usyk fight at the time, as Fury had already delayed with the Chisora trilogy fight. And then he and Warren would bang on about how Ngannou was a historic fight that the fans wanted to see, which wasn't true at all. And all the while Fury was claiming to be the best of his generation - and of all time, which some pundits were shamelessly also promoting at the time. So, for me, it damaged his legacy among fans and cemented what his true fighting intentions were (ie lowest risk for highest reward) and he has never really recovered.
Would a loss to McGregor have hurt Floyd's legacy ? Same sort of thing with Fury / Ngannou...only difference being that Floyd clearly won.
Fury was messing around in that fight, he didn't approach the fight seriously, if he had done that he would have won easily, that fight is a stain on his legacy...
What was his amateur and professional BOXING record prior to the Fury fight? He’d never had a loss true but he’d also never had a fight in this discipline. Hence he’s a novice FFS.
How Bad Is The Ngannou fight for Furys legacy? This is a good question . On one hand: What legacy? It's not like he's Mike Tyson or Muhammed Ali. Nobody will remember Fury, AJ or Usyk 30 years down the road. On the other hand someone knowledgeable about boxing should realize that Fury wasn't really able to maintain his huge body and that this is something that happens to alot of oversized people and that the Ngannou and Usyk fights really didn't involve prime examples of Fury.
Yeah and then AJ went and fought him too at 0-1. Nobody should be allowed to walk into boxing and compete at that level with zero experience in the sport.
The point being, none of it should have happened in the first place. How the **** does a man who has never had a boxing match before end up fighting the two biggest HW stars in his first two fights?
That's true. But after you almost beat the heavyweight champ, I think you earn the right to stay in the sport if you want to do so.
About the same as Patterson damaged his reputation by fighting and getting knocked down by 0-0 Pete Rademacher.
Your logic is circular. You're validating Usyk's greatness by citing his wins over Fury, but then justifying Fury's status by how well he fought Usyk. each fighter's greatness is used to validate the other's, which is textbook circular reasoning. I would suggest the fact, a past it Fury performed so well against Usyk, actually hurts Usyk's legacy. You are going in the opposite direction. AJ getting destroyed shortly after, also does the same.