Where does this idea come from that Fury is such an intelligent, 'High IQ' fighter?

Fury's ring IQ is far from an ATG level, but it's very very good.

He has Wlad coming and going with 3 things:
#1, was a brilliant, perfect gameplan which he executed to perfection, he knew Wlad had never faced the calm, cocky arrogance he brought to the table and riled him up enough to have him not thinking straight. Then he imposed him size on Wlad and confused a master taction and outboxed him at length. His selection of counter jabs, feints and consistent movement to the left nulified Wlad's jab, which stopped the majority of his offence.

#2, his coming and going, herky-jerky stance with his weird head movement. He confused Wlad by being a moving target all night, combined with him not able to work a constant jab and then on top of that Fury's arrhythmic offence Wlad didn't know what was happening and ended up losing round after round.

#3, counter jabs, range-managment and feints. Fury wasn't in Klitschko's range long enough to get nailed, and used his ridiculous range and good footwork to keep Wlad at his prefered range, which Wlad didn't like. He feinted to set up his offence and further nullified his jab with a quick counter jab that sorta over ruled it in terms of a scoring punch.

Add all that together and you leave an, albeit aging, ATG mastermind baffled.

A niesh example, is the Cunningham fight. Whilst fighting a seasoned pro in Cunningham, he was timed with an awesome overhand right repeatedly, not just the one that scored the KD, and was taking leather. He then employed roughhouse, dirty tactics and imposed his massive frame on the CW. We know how that ended.

Look at him dismantling Chisora and Hammer, he kept turning them, had them second guessing and utilized his size in a unique way and made it work.

As I said, he's not some unbelievable wizard who's doing **** never done before, but his ring IQ isn't bad, which the OP was clearly implying, it's quite the opposite.

 

Wlad was also old as dirt, although you may insist that his prime was pushing 40.

 

NoNeck only tends to see one of those colors...

 

Well, Ortiz and Wlad share a common opponent from back then in Jennings and Ortiz thoroughly outperformed Wlad.

It must also be noted that Fury was juiced to the gills back then but getting away with it due to favoritism by the UK board.

 

He eats booty

 

difference in the fighters that you mentioned. ALL of them had power and went for the knock out. and against better competition.

 

That’s obvious. Lol

 

From his actions in the ring

 

Wlad fought timid because Furys use of feints and lateral movement disguised his punches and took Klitschkos jab away.

 

Maybe the fact he outfoxed the most skilled and powerful boxer out there in Wlad Klitschko. That was almost a pure example of his 'ring IQ'. He didn't wear him down by taking punches to the head like Brewster or snipe him out of there like Sanders, Fury played cat and mouse for 10 rounds with the most dangerous boxer on the planet at the time (the last two he actually went toe to toe, though people forget that).

The 'awkward' label is just used to dismiss his obvious skills. Fury isn't as big as he claims, so he didn't have a huge reach advantage over Wlad/Wilder, this wasn't why he was awkward for them. He's fast and agile for his size and has a large defensive and offensive skillset. Everyone who spars/fights him explains how hard he is to fight.

Lol at the idea he doesn't have impressive defensive skills at HW. It's not just his length. His head movement and slips are obviously unique for a fighter that size. The amount of shots he cleanly dodged from a fighter as explosive and fast as Wilder was remarkable actually, wasn't like he was taking them on the guard.

 

Has has shown great ring generalship vs WK in particular. I think he can do that again in Feb and make Wilder look the one dimensional fighter he is.

 

You're missing everything. And if you don't think that he's an intelligent fighter, then you don't know boxing.

 

It is everything about him. He seems to see things about a person's personality and he is a deep person. You can tell. Almost too sensitive for being a boxer. I am not sure he is totally into this rematch with Wilder.

 

Big-framed tough guys who try to box using their size advantage (ie: Mike White or Valuev) had issues with high level skilled opponents

K-brothers were also size-kings & did well vs smaller guys using the deterrent of punching power to create an illusion of some boxing superiority.

Fury used his few inches advantage to expose Wlad, should not get credit for out-boxing Wilder, because Wilder was there to put him down, but most importantly Fury also showed elite-level heart, getting up from a KO.

So Fury exceptional bravery + boxing ability made him better than any other boxer of his size.

In a way Muhammad Ali boxing skills were exaggerated, mainly because of his exceptional heart, so Fury is closer to an Ali in the nature of his "boxing skills"