Tyson Fury could barely land a glove on Wladimir Klitschko? Where exactly was the masterclass?

Yeah, but victories over the true champ always age well. I've covered this off elsewhere in the thread.

1) Wlad was expected to win 2) Fury won reasonably easily 3) It was the only time Wladimir was ever outpointed 4) It was the first time Wlad had been beaten in more than a decade. 5) Someone has to beat the champ and they are credited accordingly in all cases.

There's no way to paint as anything but a very good, important win.

What's happening here is what always happens. Bunch of people overrate a big win in the now. Then a bunch of people get irritated by the overrating and spend the week saying ridiculous stuff undermining that which shouldn't really be undermined to try to even the score or some such thing. Can't really say what you guys are up to.

Here's the news though. Fury is the number one HW post-Wladimir, and it is absolutely not up for debate on any front. Now, if you guys want to debate the intricacies of that absolute fact, knock yourselves out, but there really isn't all that much room for maneuver tbh.

 

Yeah, I didn't want to say this because I don't want to get in an argument with the people who are hell bent on the fight as irredeemable. But as was the case with Calzaghe-Hopkins (which was much better tbf!) there are things that are worth noting and this was one of them.

It was the twelfth. Fury's trunks were falling down and he kept getting hit when he was trying to pull them up

 

It means undisputed world's number one, if that makes it clearer. Which Wladimir irrefutably was and has been for years.

Someone has to beat the champ and they are credited accordingly in all cases. So that's Tunny beating Dempsey, Dempsey past his best, a fighter of the last generation, a win that seese Tunney occasionally appear in ATG top 10 rankings, which is madness but it does happen. Still, it's a win where Tunney received huge credit for a fighter evidentially more past it that Wladimir, I would suggest. Jim Corbett received enormous praise for his out-classing of John Sullivan who was a functioning alcoholic who hadn't won a fight under LQR for four years. Spinks over Holmes. The list goes on and on. It's a generational win - it's one of the wins of the generation. The only ones that compare over the last ten years are:

Wladimir over Povetkin (Clearly not as impressive).
Ruiz over AJ (Clearly not as impressive).
AJ over Ruiz (Clearly not as impressive).
Fury over Wilder II (Not as impressive to me).

But even if you agree over all of the above, which I would find very strange, it's still one of the five most significant HW wins in a decade. Probably more.

Wherever he ranks generationally, he ranked in the top two HWs in the world when Fury beat him in the second fight. That's a generational win. There are guys, all-time great fighters, irrefutable legends that don't manage to do that twice in a career. Manuel Ortiz, for example.

I hope so. Fury smashed his ****ing face in.

Is he? Now who is judging out of time? Wilder has lost only to the best fighter of his generation; AJ has been beaten by a guy in Ruiz who hasn't won a meaningful fight since 2019 and is currently 1-2 versus ranked contenders for his entire career. I'd say it's already debatable given the thrashings Joshua has suffered and at the very least you need to wait for them to retire to make this judgement.

Usyk is 1-0 against ranked contenders at HW and could easily wash up 2-4. Let's pump the brakes a bit on the generational ranking of Usyk, shall we?

Tell you what. Let's hear the counter-argument. Now.

Imagine Fury, AJ, Usyk and Wilder all retire now.

Let's hear your argument as to who is the number one HW of this generation.

I've provided a detailed argument above.

Usyk: 1-0 against ranked contenders. Nowhere generationally, sorry, but he absolutely isn't.

AJ: Thrashed by Ruiz (1-2 vs ranked guys), thrashed by Usyk (1-0 versus ranked guys). The argument for AJ above Fury now, historically, is absolutely non-existent and anyone making it is making it for personal reasons of bias.

 

It definitely matters that they haven't met in determining which one is best, but in terms of legacy there is zero comparison because Usyk's HW legacy is essentially 1 fight (for all that it's a hugely important one). You could argue, probably, that Usyk has the single best win of the two (that's not my position) but there's clearly not a lot in it and that would be all Usyk has, he's got nothing else. All due respect to Witherspoon and Chisora (and Fury has a better Chisora anyway).

If they never meet, if neither one of them markedly improves their position over the other between now and then without them meeting, there is no comparison. Fury is the number one HW of his generation now, but that situation could certainly change if the two meet and something unexpected (to me) happens.

 

So it sounds, basically, like you agree, but don't really like it.