2016 was the worst year in the history of the heavyweight division

I'm not exaggerating here because I'm pretty sure that you can't come up with a year in which HW division looked like a bigger joke than it looked in 2016. There was almost zero excitement for boxing fans in HW division this year.

If you look at the line up of champs (probably the weakest line up of champs ever) and what they did in 2016:

Deontay Wilder - 37-0 record but hasn't fought anybody even remotely decent in his career and has the resume of a prospect despite having 4 title defenses already. In 2016 he fought two lower level fighters who aren't even fringe contenders and then gave the boxing fans a "Christmas present" of announcing an even worse opponent for his next fight.

Tyson Fury - has been a complete and utter embarrassment for the entire sport in 2016, hasn't fought at all, pulled out of the fight with Klitschko twice, openly mocked boxing, posed in front of journalists overweight and ridiculously out of shape, jumping with the English drunk fans right after pulling out because of a supposed ankle injury, caught for steroids, mental health problems and should basically be in a mental asylum.

Charles Martin - probably the worst HW champion in the history of boxing, got his title in a complete farce of a title fight that shouldn't have happened at all and only "won" after a freak injury of his opponent. Was completely exposed as the can that he is by Joshua and did absolutely nothing in his first "defense" of the title. Made some bizarre statements and is acting like a lunatic.

Lucas Browne - an old fart who started boxing in his 30s, busted TWICE for steroids in 2016.

Anthony Joshua - nothing against him, he's still green and needed some experience before stepping up, but it doesn't change the fact that in 2016 none of his fights were particularly interesting. He was a huge favorite in each of his fights and did what was expected and his opponents particularly Molina and Martin just came for a paycheck.

Then you have the other marquee names in the division who also did absolutely nothing...

David Haye fought two complete cans and is now scheduled to fight a blown up LHW in a meaningless fight that does absolutely nothing for division.

Luis Ortiz had an unimpressive performance against Malik Scott and just fought guys who he was supposed to beat.

Povetkin busted for PEDs twice. The only fight that we were really looking for (other than Klitschko vs Fury II) was him vs Wilder and it got cancelled. Knocked out a guy on a 20 hour notice who fought in regular sneakers instead of real boxing shoes.

Wladimir Klitschko hasn't fought entire year. Not his fault but still...

Pulev had a solid performance against Chisora but then had a completely unnecessary fight against Samuel Peter.

Glazkov out for a long time due to a complicated knee injury.

Parker had a solid year and there was Chisora vs Whyte. Those were pretty much the only highlights of the year.

 

When WK reigned at least the division had a prestigious marquee champ who was also a great ambassador for boxing and filled the arenas. He was the man to beat and was close to unifying the titles.

I'm not a fan of Klitschko's style but the man was the face of boxing in Europe at that time, he did a lot of great things for boxing and was a household name. He's also a great athlete, a model professional and an ATG. He was the best possible thing that has happened to HW boxing in the recent history.

If you look at the current line up of champs they don't even come close to 2012 Klitschko. Green Joshua, untested cherrypicker Wilder and mentally unhealthy Fury who probably won't even fight again. We also had the worst HW champion ever in Charles Martin.

2012 also had Haye vs Chisora which was a great fight with a lot of drama and hype.

There was also Marco Huck vs Povetkin, another solid scrap.

Vitali Klitschko had fights against Chisora and Charr.

There was much more talk about the HW division in 2012 then it was in 2016, the only time people outside of hardcore boxing fan community talked about HW in 2016 was when Fury went mental or when Joshua smashed another can who came for a paycheck.

2016 had absolutely nothing to offer except the Chisora vs Whyte fight.

 

Fury vs Klitschko 2 was a fight that had to happen to let the division go on. Klitschko deserved his rematch after being on the top for so long and Fury had to prove that the win wasn't a fluke. If we had that fight in July as planned we could have had Klitschko/Fury vs Joshua with the lineal belt on the line now. We would also have had another Klitschko or Fury (if he was mentally healthy) fight in the second part of the year.

 

It was actually the worst thing that has happened to the division. Without that fight Klitschko would have still had his belts and the fight against Joshua would be even bigger.

The judges should have just robbed Fury and save boxing, it's not like anyone would complain, everyone is used to German robberies by now.