Dillian Whyte has a comparable resume to Wilder arguably even better. Wins over Parker, Chisora and Rivas are comparable to wins over Stiverne and Ortiz. There is a massive gap between Wilders resume and how he is rated
Absolutely. If anything, Joshua is too brave for his own good. He should have built himself back up after the first loss with confidence building easier mathches.
"Why didn't he give Wlad the rematch?" Fury was right to deny Wlad a rematch Even if Fury hadn’t become a morbidly obese alcoholic and cokehead, he’d have been right not to give Wlad a rematch: 1. Fury was Wlad’s mandatory which under normal circumstances means no rematch, let alone a one way rematch clause 2. Wlad tried to stack the deck in every way possible (home, A-side, canvas, gloves, scales) 3. Where was Povetkin’s rematch? 4. Wlad gave Fury no credit, sore loser 5. A-side Wlad lost by 8-4/9-3 margins according to the judges in Germany (and wider according to most neutral observers), Fury had nothing to prove or get back (unlike Wlad-Puritty or Wlad-Sanders). 6. A more experienced Fury would have got little credit for beating a 40+, more worn, dethroned Wlad in Britain in a rematch and had Fury won by a less clear margin (let alone lost), the narrative would have been strengthened that Wlad 1. Had an “off-night” in Düsseldorf 2. Lost due to being “past his prime”, à la Spinks-Holmes 7. Fury denied Wlad a chance to avenge his loss or even improve on his performance and salvage his pride and reputation by going out on his shield, which hurt Wlad a lot more than losing again because there would always be a “What if?” 8. Dethroned Wlad went on to go life and death with Joshua in London 17 months later coming off a layoff, which raised Fury’s stock more than beating Wlad again and retiring him 9. Contracts always favour the fighter with more financial muscle behind him; the terms between an A-side champion and a B-side challenger are inherently uneven "That AJ KOed Wlad was probably the fundamental reason Fury ducked him." Joshua went life and death with a Wlad who was much older, more worn, inactive, dethroned and a clean underdog, in Britain. Journeyman Puritty KO'd 20's Wlad faster than Joshua KO'd 40's Wlad, as did fringe contenders Sanders and Brewster. Team Joshua ducked Fury in December and prior to that Joshua couldn't stop losing and needing rematches: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...ucking-of-fury-in-bombshell-interview.694541/ "Wilder is technically a terrible boxer. He has selected carefully those he fights and there are obvious fights, such as Malik Scott, who have taken a dive. The problem for Usyk is if he destroys Wilder then he will never get the Fury fight." Wilder was a legit bronze medallist with less experience than when Joshua was gifted gold in London, when most observers had Savon winning by a wide margin in Joshua's backyard. Wilder beat 30-0 Ortiz and drew with 27-0 Fury, while Joshua got crushed by 25-1 underdog and Parker-victim Andy Ruiz. Scott did dive but so did Martin and Molina. So did many of Tyson's opponents. Boxers can get spooked and take dives and often do against KO artists. Who says Usyk will get the Fury fight anyway? At least Wilder is a big payday, a big name (hence Usyk has always mentioned him alongside Fury and Joshua as a potential opponent) and beating him would put pressure on Fury to come to the table by making Usyk the man in terms of opponents beat in his last 3 fights. "Fury has only spouted hateful diatribe and given us no fights." Fury's fought three times over the same period Usyk fought once. It could easily become four. You can criticise Fury for many things but "giving us no fights" aka being inactive isn't one of them. "PS back when everyone had Usyk getting destroyed by every HW" I didn't, I favoured him to outbox Joshua. I favour him to outbox Wilder too, though I'm less confident there for a number of reasons which I will get to. "look as slow as Valuev did against Haye" Usyk is 36 and 220 lbs: is he as fast as a 29 year old 217 lbs Haye? Perhaps, probably not much in it either way. But Fury is much faster than final career fight 316 lbs Valuev, who is far closer in speed to Wach than Fury. Whyte had no problem landing on Parker or Wach, yet 1 year ago he couldn't land a single meaningful headshot on 265 lbs Fury. And some had Valuev beating Haye on work rate, it was a very close fight, so a poor example. "Links to Usyk chin and Wilder-Ortiz 2 posts" Usyk has a phenomenal chin but can it take Wilder's right hand? And if so, how many? We don't know. But even Fury didn't shut out Wilder over 12 and almost got KO'd, so let's not pretend it's an easy task. “Szpilka schooled Wilder for 8 rounds” Compubox: Wilder 75-63 Eyeonthering: Wilder 12-5-4 Boxrec: Wilder 5-3 Judges: Wilder 6-2 And Szpilka was sparked and carried out on a stretcher for his trouble, 7 years ago. Wilder always had A-side, home and champion advantage and his team were aware of this, it has an effect on strategy. Wilder wouldn't bother trying to consistently keep his nose in front of Usyk on the cards as he did against Szpilka or Ortiz the 1st time and he wouldn't expect Usyk to gas as he did Ortiz the 2nd time. Wilder would be looking for the KO and KD’s from the opening bell, for 36 minutes or less. And he’d have a better chance of getting them than Joshua (who landed 247 punches on Usyk over 24 rounds according to Compubox) due to his greater length, speed, agility, right hand KO power, heart, confidence, killer instinct, unconventionality, ease of underestimation and southpaw experience. Wilder’s trainer Scott has also studied Usyk, sparred him extensively and has 24 rounds from Usyk’s fights with 6’5.5 power puncher Joshua that he can review. Usyk didn't stop Glowacki, Hunter, Briedis, Gassiev, Chisora or Joshua x2, with only one KD scored, so Usyk stopping Wilder is unlikely and his primary gameplan would very likely be to pointfight for 36 minutes. As Fury can attest this carries clear risks against Wilder, especially in America. Wilder isn’t going to fear Usyk’s punches as he did Ortiz and Fury, so he’ll be more aggressive in looking to land a bomb. And he’ll be trying to land it early as that’s when his master pointfighter opponent will be most vulnerable to an explosive punch. All that being said, Usyk is confident in this matchup; he stated that he regarded Wilder as being the easiest of the “big three” even prior to Fury-Wilder 2.
Tyson Fury is literally batman You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
Just going back to this point. Do Boxing News now have Usyk as the Heavyweight Champion in their weekly periodical? They stopped updating their online TBRB rankings page last year.
The Wlad fight should have an asterisk by it simply for being the worst, most boring, fewest punches thrown HW championship fight in the entire film/TV era. Aside from that he beat Wilder 3 x, and barely escaped with his life in two of those fights. The rest of his career is unmentionable at best . No Aj, No Usyk, No Haye, No Povetkin, No Ruiz, No Parker, No Ortiz
Oh I get it! "Suck"........"head moderator".....I see what you did there, funny stuff! Man, you shouldn't put Fury-Klit down like that! Don't you realize that Fury achieved the greatest all-time defensive record in that fight?! He beat the previous all-time defensive record holder, who himself was one of the GOAT!
