An unbiased look at Fury's top 10 opponents

Chambers: 6'1, relative featherfist and blown up cruiser, with best wins being MD's over Dimitrenko, faded Peter and an SD over Calvin Brock. Povetkin outlands him by 4 punches according to Compubox. Dominated and KO'd by Wlad.

Chagaev: 5'11, also not a hard puncher and blown up cruiser but southpaw, best wins being MD's over Valuev, Vyrchys and an SD over John Ruiz. Dominated and KO'd by Wlad years prior.

Whyte: 6'3, decent puncher and natural heavy but chinny, best wins being UD's over Parker and Rivas, KO11 and SD over Chisora. Povetkin is three rounds behind and has been dropped twice before he lands a critical punch. Dominated and KO'd by AJ years prior.

Didn't you claim that Wilder had not shown more power than Povetkin? If you make such a claim then Wilder's 20 first round KO's (compared to Povetkin's 2 in 40 fights) and stopping every man he ever faced in 45 fights aside from Fury (compared to Povetkin's failures to stop Tessier, Ahunanya, badly faded Donald, Chambers, Estrada, Firtha who Wilder stopped in 4, Chagaev, Huck, Klitschko, Rudenko, Hammer, Joshua, H. Fury or Hunter) are obviously relevant. At 6'7, very fast, very tough and an ATG puncher, Wilder is more dangerous than any version of Povetkin, especially the 39 year old version fighting away.

Duhaupas had fought a prime juiced to the gills Teper before Wilder and took him the whole 12 rounds, who was on a 3 KO streak (2 in the 1st round) and KO'd Pricey in 2 in his next fight, who took Povetkin 5 and dropped him. Ortiz had not only not been KO'd, he hadn't been dropped in 30 fights and was a highly skilled and experienced 6'3, 240 lbs southpaw with a lot of power. Dropping him three times and stopping him is far more impressive than going the distance with fat cruisers Chagaev, Chambers and the rest.

 

Ridiculous pedantry, I used KO as a shorthand for KO/TKO/DQ. Wilder stopped or dropped every man he ever faced.

Povetkin fought a more shopworn post-Wilder Duhaupas who has since been KO'd in 1 round by Yoka but no one believes that Yoka punches harder than Wilder. Juiced to the gills Povetkin also fought Duhaupas on literally a day's notice.

 

What are your grounds for claiming that AJ has a better resume?

What are your grounds for believing that the current division is weak? Relative to what? The Klitschko era? The lightweight division? A highly geographically limited division that had a 5'10, visually impaired, 205 pounder ruling the roost 50 years ago?

At heavyweight you don't have to be as versatile if your strength is exceptional. When you're a historically big puncher, extremely rangy, very fast and very tough, you're extremely dangerous to virtually any heavyweight, regardless of any technical limitations. If Wilder was as bad skill-wise as his critics like to claim, he wouldn't have beaten an Olympic gold medalist and World Championship silver medalist over 4 rounds as an amateur on less than 3 years of boxing experience before he turned 23, while working various day jobs. Wilder's backfoot performances against Stiverne, Arreola and Duhaupas were also more impressive than AJ's against Ruiz.

It doesn't matter if Fury-Joshua never happens if AJ loses to Usyk again. If in your prime you lose three times in your last five fights (twice badly to underdogs) then you're not a player in determining the best of the era.

 

Byrd was badly faded, a blown up SMW and a non-puncher. Chambers was a blown up cruiser who failed against cruisers and a non-puncher, who Povetkin won a fairly close fight against. The Huck fight was highly controversial, most thought Povetkin would have been lucky to escape with a draw and Huck had been TKO'd by Cunningham in Germany a few years prior, who most believe was a pillow puncher. Un-KO'd Takam was not a big puncher but he was at least a genuine HW and in his prime, who Povetkin overcame in a war to KO cold.

 

"Lennox Lewis beat around 5 times as many top 10 heavyweights"

Wlad beat more than Lewis but his best win was still dominating David Haye. Lewis's third best win was probably Rahman, who one-punch KO'd him in the first fight. Or maybe it was 5'9, 69 inch reach, beaten by blown up SMW Byrd David Tua. Or maybe it was 0-1-1 in his last 2 fights, winless in 2.5 years Chisora-esque fringe contender Mercer, who he was lucky to get an MD over.

Given the context, Fury's wins over Wlad away and Wilder x2 away are easily better than Lewis's over Vitali and Holyfield away. And Fury wasn't bombed out in one punch by a couple of palookas: a personal Lewis record for a reigning champion in all weight classes.

 

Haye was a good fighter, a unified cruiser champ (despite being much less dominant over weaker opposition than Usyk) and a massive puncher, so it would have been a good win but I would rank it below Wilder. Haye and Wilder have similar styles (which is partly why Haye picked Wilder to beat Fury every time) but 10 consecutive defence champ Wilder's length and toughness (not almost KO'd by a 0-4-1 in his last 5 blown up SMW journeyman or stopped in 5 by a 40 year old LHW) make him more dangerous than Haye.

Fury's career hasn't finished yet either. Usyk would be a great win, even Ruiz would be in the top 10. We'll see how it pans out.

 

Lacking relative to what?

 

Odds aren't perfect but they get it right more often than not, people think otherwise only because they remember the odd upset and not all the times in which the favourite rolls the underdog.

A common critique of Wilder relative to AJ is that Wilder has fought overmatched opposition but the odds suggest that his first championship fight against Stiverne and his three with Fury were more dangerous than any of AJ's bouts. It turns out that Ruiz and Usyk were very dangerous to AJ, at least on those nights but being beaten multiple times as a big favourite implies that you have been protected and overhyped. Winning against favourites, especially big ones, implies the opposite.

 

Cool.

 

Fair enough but I don't think you can compare modern HW's with HW's from 50 or 100 years ago. Skilled, athletic SHW's didn't even exist prior to the 90's.