A lot of people have been complaining about how bad this era is. I think it's been great. To me, the post-Lewis era was the poorest ever in terms of it's shallow talent, and the Klitschko era was marred by the unevenness or having two giant brothers dividing the division and beating on some high quality by comparatively diminutive competition. The last ten years has been a giant tournament of guys with a high diversity of skills and relative parity. Fury earned his place by dethroning Klitschko. Joshua earned his place by coming out on top--with a little bump in the road--against Martin, Parker, Klitschko, Povetkin, Whyte and Ruiz. Wilder had his alternative WBC universe in which he at least managed to stay undefeated and register a couple of good victories over Ortiz. And Uysk earned his place in the final four by bossing the best cruiserweight division ever. Wilder and Fury had three wildly entertaining bouts in which Fury came out ahead. Usyk pitched two masterclasses against Joshua which were entertaining in being great David-and-Goliath stories. Finally, Fury and Usyk met in what was not only a dramatic, somewhat close fight in the ring, but a great morality tale that people liked talking about. What the hell was not to like about this? It was all unconventional, and lacked a consistent central figure like most eras, but the best fought each other on a roundabout way, and some of the fights were terrific.
We've been waiting 10 years for Fury to grow a pair to prove he ain't all that - not a tournament, wasted years.
