5 months later what are your thoughts on Wilder v Fury III looking back?

No, it really won't. And I said nothing, not one word, about hypothetical matchups involving Wilder.

It's your view that Wilder was responsible for the Wilder-Joshua fight failing to materialize. I and many others disagree. Not only that, he went on to face the true heavyweight champion of the world, a greater challenge. He came up short, sure, but, he was facing the true heavyweight champion of the world, so...

 

Outside of the 4th.... Was it really all that competitive?

 

Unfortunately the only way to give Wilder any appreciation is through hypothetical matchups because his own matchups were against C and D level opponents. Ortiz would have to step up and beat a C or D level opponent before we give Wilder any credit for that win.

I seem to recall Fury having no belts when he faced Wilder the 1st time, Fury wasn't the Heavyweight Champion. So.... The only reason Fury has a belt and a heavyweight champion, is because he beat a paper champion.

 

Wilder has proven he can knock out ANYONE. So yes as long as he's still breathing it's competitive. Wilder can lose every second of a fight and it's still technically competitive in till he no longer has that single punchers chance. He really is a FREAK.

He was hurting Fury at times past the 4th round but once Fury has been hurt he becomes invincible and able to absorb even more. Hurting him makes him stronger. Normally fighters fade from accumulation, Fury it's the opposite. It stokes the fire that lives deep inside him. His fight or flight response kicks in. His watermelon adrenaline glands start pumping (which Wilder had already emptied on the ring walk).

& even when Fury is out of adrenaline. Out of gas. He has something even more. He can keep digging. He pulls out his 20 tonne JCB and keeps going further.,

 

The clause in the Fury-Wilder II contract was, in fact, an immediate rematch clause, which has been clarified many times.

Bleacher Report — "Fury defeated Wilder in February, but the losing side was given 30 days to exercise his right to an immediate rematch. is but one example. Injury and then the COVID-19 pandemic forced a delay to the potential bout, causing Fury to move forward with a Dec. 5 match against Agit Kabayel." — is but one example of many.

The contracted stipulation that a rematch be immediate is the reason Fury-Kabayel didn't end up happening in December of 2020. Unless you contend that Fury ducked Kabayel, too?


Here's a useful timeline;

October 2020, Arum issues statements that the clause had expired and Fury is moving on. Finkel issues statements that he and his fighter will be pursuing the immediate rematch.

Early November brought reports of Fury-Kabayel being put together for December. Joshua is, at this point, due to defend against Pulev in the same month.

November 10 brought reports that Wilder's side would be challenging Fury's attempt to move on, presumably on the grounds of extenuating circumstances (delays caused by the COVID-19 situation), including this from Bleacher Report; "A retired judge will preside over mediation this week before beginning a binding arbitration. "We're going into it very optistmically this week," Wilder's co-manager Shelly Finkel said."

Within a few days, the nixing of the Kabayel bout was reported. Here's an example from the platform backing Hearn (DAZN); "Fury had said he had "moved on" from another Wilder fight, but the Bronze Bomber disputes that decision, and the pair will [url]go to arbitration[/url] in order to resolve the disagreement."

Negotiations then opened up with Joshua, following his stoppage of Pulev. The third bout with Wilder was already well overdue at this stage. Arum and Warren presumably thought they'd still be able to avoid the rematch at arbitration on grounds of the clause having expired, and apparently assured Hearn as much. So, yes, while arbitration loomed, Fury-Joshua negotiations went back and forth for a while, as negotiations for big fights often do. Then Wilder won the arbitration and that was all she wrote for the chances of seeing Fury vs. The Belt-Warmer in 2021.


None of that is rewritten history. It's the actual history, written at the time it occurred by the contemporaneous reportage.

The worst you can accuse Fury of is his team assuring Hearn of a favorable arbitration outcome, which messed Hearn around and caused him inconvenience.


Fury gave the impression that he was tired of the endless Wilder saga and didn't have much enthusiasm for the third bout. Many people remarked upon that. In the end, he was legally bound to honor the clause for an immediate rematch. This is a fact. Whatever Hearn said is irrelevant, he's a shyster with reasons to talk **** and had literally nothing to do with a contract between Fury and Wilder. I guess you've got a reason to buy his ****, i.e. a not very concealed dislike for Tyson Fury).

What was true for Fury back then is just as true for Usyk now. With the Ukraine having released him to resume his career, he cannot (if, for whatever reason, he wanted to) move on and fight anyone else before he fights Joshua, unless Joshua waives his right to an immediate rematch.


This idea that Fury would run from a guy Andy Ruiz smacked around like a pimp abusing a streetwalker, I understand where it comes from. But that dark corner of your heart is not a place of truth. Look deep within and choose the light, Francesco.

 

This statement invalidates your position on Wilder. Sorry, but you're done.

Who cares about bits of leather and metal? Joshua didn't win a single one of his belts from Fury, the man who held them previously. Fury won the lineage when he beat Klitschko, a more meaningful title than any ABC. He isn't the first guy, historically, to have retained the lineage while out for an extended period. Johnson, Willard and Dempsey all did it. Jim Braddock pulled out of a scheduled bout with Max Schmeling (or ducked him, if you prefer) and didn't defend his status for two years, but still retained the lineage (which was then passed to Louis).

There are reasons Fury became the consensus champion — that is, (C), not merely the #1 ranked guy — of the heavyweight division after beating Wilder in February of 2020.

1. The industry does not consider Wilder a C or D fighter, so beating him comprehensively carried weight. Wilder was Joshua's chief doubter in Fury's absence. Fury stepped up and destroyed Wilder. That's more significant than anything Joshua has ever done, and it's not debatable.

2. Fury had won the lineage from Klitschko back in 2015, and even those in the industry who had proposed that an argument could be made for Fury having relinquished the lineage in his hiatus from the sport were no longer inclined to argue against his right to the lineage after his resounding victory over Wilder.

 

Helluva fight. One of the best fights I've seen live. It will hold up through future generations.

A lot of people have characterized it as "sloppy" but that's how boxing is sometimes, especially at heavyweight. It's a complete mischaracterization of these fighters to call them "less skilled" when HW's are almost participating in a different sport. Timing, and the ability to measure distance at HW are significantly more important than they are at lighter weights. Humans get bigger but chins don't necessarily adapt to sustain more punishment in kind. Ultimately, people need to stop watching side by side footage of Lomachenko and Wilder/Joshua and saying "these big guys are ****!" when the parameters of what they're involved in are completely different.

 

Appreciated, friend.

 

He spent half his camp in the hospital ward because of his new born baby girl being extremely sick.

 

Look how many knockdowns there were.... how can you say here was no "ebb and flow" ?

 

Referring to Ortiz (who was hyped as a major threat to Wlad in 2014/2015, who Hearn said that "no one wants to fight" just a few months ago) as a "gatekeeper" while implying that 2015 Whyte, Joey twelve Parker and a light punching 5'11 morbidly obese late sub 25-1 underdog were top contenders. But you're an AJ fan, so you have to lie.

 

It was an ebb and flow through incompetence not through skill.
There's a difference.

 

I agree with him, in so much as I can't recall Fury losing a round after the 4th. But those seven rounds were engaging all the same, there were plenty of exchanges of fire, with Fury willingly ploughing through Wilder's punches at times, which kept up the tension and the sense of back-and-forth.

Those calling it the GOAT HW fight were clearly overstating it, but it'll definitely take a place in the canon of classic rumbles among the giants.

 

I don't support that argument against this fight's claim to historical classic status.

In addition to just being more defensively liable in the earlier going when Wilder was fresh, it was apparent that Fury consciously elected to bang it out more in the second half of the fight once he felt comfortable to do so — but, whether we attribute his increased tendency to eat a punch in the third fight to defensive liability or calculated risk, 'incompetence' is much too big a word for it.

It doesn't automatically follow that a bout is prohibited from entering the canon of classic fights if one or both of the principles appears more hittable or less in-form than in a prior encounter — Ali-Frazier III is an obvious example, with some preferring the sloppier third encounter to the more crisply fought first encounter (that's not to imply that Fury-Wilder III should rank as highly as Ali-Frazier III, by the way). Hell, by that token, anyone could easily accuse Arturo Gatti of incompetence in fights that are now rightly considered historical classics of the sport (Rodriguez, Ward I).