Fury-AJ needs to be Next (Makhmudov Post Fight Video)

I hope this fight gets made. Too many times fans don’t get the fight that everyone wants whether it’s Lewis vs Vitali 2, or Lewis vs Bowe, or Dempsey vs Wills and so on and so forth. Even though Usyk is the class of the division this is the biggest fight left to be made right now.

 

Although the fight should have happened years ago when both were in their prime, I still want to see the outcome of this.
I always figured Joshua would be all wrong for Fury, but we'll never know until it actually happens.

Like @The Long Count mentioned, so many times we didn't see the fights happen in HW that should.

 

What was up with AJ last night? He looked a little shellshocked that Fury resembled his old self, and then wouldn’t commit to anything.

I don’t get it. He’s literally being trained by Usyk’s team, at Usyk’s gym, with Usyk himself assisting. It’s Rocky 3, with Usyk as Apollo and AJ as Rocky. And AJ now feels unsure of himself? He should feel more confident than ever against Fury - name a better team to get him ready for a fight against Fury. There is none.

AJ doesn’t need to outbox Fury. He can’t. He’s not going to. But I think Team Usyk can improve him enough to capitalize on mistakes and openings by Fury to bring that big right hand home enough to get it done.

Makhmudov wouldn’t have lasted more than 2-3 rounds against AJ last night. Just saying. AJ just needs to box WELL ENOUGH to allow his power to finish it. He doesn’t need to be as good of a boxer as Fury, just good enough.

 

Joshua needed two years and four tuneups to get in there with DANIEL DUBOIS. He proceeded to get completely outclassed and pummeled, possibly broken for good.

Do we really think he's going to jump into a Fury fight? He doesn't want it bad enough.

If someone has a list of terms and conditions when it's clear to everyone else that this is as good a time as any, they simply don't want it bad enough. Maybe he wants the fight under perfect conditions, but those don't exist in boxing. You either want it bad enough to accept some imperfection in the run up, or you're ducking.

 

They will fight Wilder as a "tune up" but AJ wets himself on the ringwalk and collapses from Wilders dark magic.

Fury meanwhile retires again whilst Usyk dabbles with Kabayel.

 

When I got into boxing in April/May of 2021, I remember reading that AJ-Fury had apparently just been made for undisputed and thinking "An undisputed heavyweight champion being crowned? Wow, what a great time to get into boxing!" And then I think within a day, I read the story that a judge had ruled in favor of Wilder and that he was owed a rematch.

Five years later, it still trips me out that not only has the fight not happened yet, there's maybe a good chance it's not even right on the horizon. Then again I ain't been a boxing fan as long as most of you so I'm still not as acclimated to prolonged disappointment just yet, but I'm sure I'll get there if I stick with it

As for how it plays out, I kinda lean Joshua right now but I've gone back and forth a lot over the years. I think a big part of it will come down to how AJ can adjust when Fury finds his rhythm, which is a mental game and we all know that AJ's mental game track record isn't exactly glowing. Then again, Fury has a tendency to get caught by big shots early on as we've seen in several fights, so him finding his rhythm could turn out to not even be a factor. Fury has excellent recovery abilities of course, but he's had to rely on those recovery abilities a fair bit over the years. Those returns could start diminishing any fight, especially now that he's older. So yeah... I reserve the right to continue going back and forth on it til the first bell

But regardless of how it plays out, I'll echo the notion that while the fight is a bit past its best by date, it's still one we oughta see. Better this goes down as another Lewis-Tyson than Bowe-Lewis. The less of those we got, the better. Bring it on

"Two giants living in the shadow of the master" put a great big smile on my face, by the way. Very first boxing event I tuned into to live watch was AJ-Usyk 1, and its been a fun journey seeing the division change to that shape over the years

 

I hate the way all these mega bouts are happening when the fighters in them are basically at the end of their careers. Both these guys could arguably be cleaned up by several others in their division. If the Fury / AJ / Wilder round-robin had happened when it was due it would have been HUGE.

 

Great post. However, given AJ's recent track record I wouldn't even be confident he could get the KO on Mahkmudov (would expect him to get a UD type win though). We don't know how the Dubios loss has affected his risk-aversion yet, and while incredibly basic Mahkmudov can punch.

 

I just heard from Dave Allen blog that Mudov has 200 amatuer bouts...I didn't know this, quite impressive. It was a perfect comeback fight for Fury. Probably a decent sparring Partner to replicate a big plodder like AJ also for Fury. Tires like AJ also. Good clinchwork for Fury as well, Fury was all over him inside.

 

In 2017/2018, this was the biggest British boxing fight of all time; now it's a level below that. I will still watch it, but it's happening nearly a decade too late, and both have been slapped about on multiple occasions by Usyk. Fury had the Ngannou farce, and Joshua got obliterated by Dubois; the ship has completely sailed.

My friends who have a casual interest in the sport were engrossed by the matchup back in 2017; now they're nonplussed. It's a shame it still hasn't happened, even though the fight is so far past the sell-by date.

 

Joshua doesn't want the fight next and Fury wants to target Usyk. We already know what will unfold

This fight is never happening.

 

Why were they engrossed in 2017? Fury was 30 stone, a drug addict, and hadn't fought since 2015.

Iirc, the Fury-Joshua hype reached its apex in 2020/2021. After Fury-Wilder 2, but before Usyk-Joshua 1. Prior to 2020 and especially prior to Fury-Wilder 1, Joshua-Wilder was touted as the biggest money fight in boxing.

 

I've seen the Rocky 3 comparison a bit but it doesn't really work like that. Rocky actually beat, and KO'd, Creed. And even their 1st fight was supposed to be a gift SD for Creed.

Joshua by radical contrast got sonned twice by Usyk. Being trained by the smaller guy who conclusively had your number isn't necessarily a confidence-builder.

I also don't think we can be too confident that Joshua would have destroyed Makhmudov: he got run over by Dubois in September 2024, only fought Jake Paul since then, and was involved in a lethal car crash less than 3 months ago, now 36.5. Makhmudov may have landed something big early and taken Joshua out.

 

It was a solid performance from Fury, but lets face it AJ would have knocked out Makhmudov…

Makhmudov is literally just a big tall guy with power, thats it, on top of scraping through a very faded Takam at best. I think AJ V Makh would have gone similar to AJ V Ngannou.