Wallin was rated as a Top 10 contender by The Ring Magazine and a Top 5 contender by TBRB at the time he fought AJ.
Yes, and many here that now dismiss Joshua's dominant win over him thought AJ would lose or at best get a gift decision.
But wait, Fury was dropped on his ass by that MMA novice IN HIS LAST FIGHT, where AJ sparked him out of the building in 2 rounds. That's not ancient history my dude. And what exactly did Fury do since he came back from his retirement beside that? Beat up Chisora, who he already beat up twice? If any other boxer came back from retirement with these 2 performances, would you rate him highly? I doubt that. Fury didn't have a good performance in almost 2 years. Out of 4 Top 10 opponents Wilder faced he only knocked out 1 of them...
In the past 5 years he beat 2 people in the top 10, Ruiz (the actual unified champion) and Wallin (a shocking number of people (not me) had him in the top 10), so this narrative is a bit untrue. He also beat Pulev (who had been a top 10 guy for most of the previous decade and was just outside of the top 10. Then he lost to Usyk twice but let's be honest, no one at HW can beat Usyk. Then he beat Franklin, a solid top 15-20 guy. I'm not an AJ fanatic or even fan. Objectively he's top 2-3, I still have Fury ahead of him even if he has declined, until Fury actually loses though.
I like AJ. Before I was always going to choose Fury as my favorite but time changes. Usyk is my nr 1 now and i start to become more of a fan towards Joshua than Fury. Because Joshua take on the fights. Whyte. Pulev. Usyk. Ruiz. Parker etc. A very solid list of opponents.
Eh, kinda of a moot criticism considering how inactive Joshua was. And it´s not like he hasn´t fought anyone of note in years. It just happened that the opponent was a future HOF and one of the best P4P boxers today. Plus Wallin is kinda underrated now. TBRB and many others had Wallin in their top 10 for a while.
Yup. If Fury loses to Usyk, I think it will be safe to say, AJ was the second best heavyweight of this generation.
Wallin was top 10 by the Ring. Also, he is rebuilding and fought arguably the best heavyweight on the planet twice.
People are rating him ahead of Fury because Fury has looked like absolute **** for years struggling with obesity and drug addiction. He also received a gift vs an unskilled MMA fighter last time out that Joshua easily dispatched.