Chris Byrd - Could He Have Beaten Wilder?

1. Whilst your use of the word "slightly" suggests our views differ in this regard, its only by matter of degrees and I agree with the rest of this point.

2. I agree Fury wasn't past prime as such, but he was diminished relative to the Wlad fight and had improved dramatically by the Wilder rematch. For reasons that are obvious and that I've explained multiple times in this thread.

3. I agree, I'd heavily favour Wilder too.

 

Fury fought the Wilder fight with the same game plan as for Wlad. He changed gameplans for the second fight but was the same guy, as suggested by how he almost got flattened in the third fight.

Wlad was supposed to beat Fury. He may have looked somewhat stale against Jennings, but he had one of his best performances against Pulev.

 

I'm in danger of veering into territory of making the same points over & over again, so I'll make 3 x final points on Fury vs Wilder 1, give my prediction for the fight in the thread title & then leave the floor to you & @Redbeard7:

1) Build up to Fury vs Wilder 1- Most people feel we never saw the best of Ali. He was still improving when, at age 26, his boxing licence was revoked. How much further he would have improved & when he'd have peaked is anyone's guess. What is clear when he returned after 3-years, is that he was no longer the same fighter. Most agree he improved after age 29, as he improved his sharpness through regular training & fighting and adapted his style so it wasn't so reliant on his legs. Eventually, that improvement was more than offset by physical deterioration through age & the punishment he took. I'm not familiar with Ali's training regime during his 3-year hiatus, but you can tell from pictures & videos during that time, that he kept himself in shape, if not fighting sharp shape.
I live just outside Preston, Lancashire, about 30-miles from where Tyson Fury lives in Morecambe, Lancashire, North-West England. I've only met him once & don't know him, but I know people who do, including a friend of a friend that I see every know & again who knows Fury well. During his near 3-years out of the ring Fury subjected his body to insane levels of alcohol & substance abuse. He gained & then lost around 150lbs. The trauma this abuse had on his body cannot be overstated. I'm no Fury fan, but like Ali, I reluctantly concede we've never seen the best of what he could have become. Not only was his body still recovering by the time of Wilder 1, it was still recovering long after, albeit at ever decreasing rates, that will eventually, if they haven't already, be more than offset by his natural decline due to age. There's no doubt whatsoever in mind that - A) He was physically diminished for Wilder 1; and B) He physically improved post Wilder 1. Those same comments applied to Ali for Frazier 1 & he kept himself in relatively good shape during his hiatus, so of course it applies to Fury to a far greater extent.

2) The rematch - Had they never fought again, I'd no doubt at some point argue with you &/or other Wilder fans that not only did Fury win on the cards for the majority of people, but that he was also severely physically diminished in their fight & that if they fought again with Fury back close to his best, Tyson would win. Fortunately for my argument, we don't need to speculate about what would happen in a rematch. As we saw, Fury dominated Wilder in a 1-sided mismatch. @Redbeard7 postulates that Fury did so much better in the rematch because his strategy for their first fight was sub-optimal. I disagree, but frankly, it's irrelevant to how their first fight reflects on Wilder. The pertinent point is that we both agree the Fury from Wilder 1, was way below the best Fury that a Wilder could face. Given the outcome of the rematches, that much, at least, is self evident.

3) Wilder finished the stronger - I consider each of the above factors to be compelling in independence. However, even when combined, they don't provide as clear an indicator as to the extent Fury was physically diminished during the Wilder 1 fight, as my final point.
I suspect Wilder has a high proportion of high twitch muscle fibres. If most boxers were track & field stars, they'd typically be middle distance runners, as you typically need both a bit of explosivity & good stamina to succeed at world level in boxing. Wilder would be a 100-metre sprinter, or more likely, a javelin thrower. He's an extraordinary athlete, built for explosivity. Which is why, despite having less than stellar punch technique, he's by far the most explosive punching HW in the world today & one of the hardest punchers of all time. It therefore stands to reason, his stamina is relatively poor, as evidenced in Fury 2 & 3. From the 3rd round onwards in their second fight & the 5th onwards in their third, he was drunkenly stumbling around the ring, mouth open, gasping in air. Not because he was permanently concussed during those rounds, but because he was exhausted. Fury is nowhere near as explosive as Wilder, but naturally has much better stamina. Yet, after being out-boxed for 8-rounds, Wilder finished the stronger, KD'ig Fury in the 9th & heavily KD'ing him in the 12th. Fury got stronger relative to Wilder the further their 2nd and 3rd fights went. The explosive Wilder got stronger relative to Fury the longer their 1st fight progressed. Such was the degree to which Fury was physically compromised during that 1st fight.

In an attempt to rectify the thread drift I've contributed towards - whilst Byrd clearly has the superior win resume, a Byrd victory on points & a Wilder victory by stoppage are broadly equally as likely as each other, imo. If you put a gun to my head, I'd guess that Wilder would catch him with a big right hand at some point & win by stoppage.

 

So he had a year to train and be sober and get couple of fights in. Fury from a few years earlier was more vulnerable to alcohol, coke, and being fat.

 

Byrd didn't beat better guys plural. He beat one guy who was better due to a shoulder injury.

Stiverne was a champion and top 3 heavyweight. He beat Helenius and Price in the same tournament. He could fight.

 

Excellent excellent post.

 

Thanks Swag, much appreciated mate.

 

It's a myth. McDermott overperformed expectations but didn't dominate. Boxrec and Eyeonthering have Fury winning. And I was talking about best performances vs a mature Fury, not a novice fighting for the English title.

 

"Most people feel we never saw the best of Ali."

Ali is a cult figure who people love to fantasise about. They imagine him at his hypothetical peak as a near-invincible superhero. So if Ali loses, the response will always be that it wasn't the best Ali for some reason or reasons and that the best Ali would always win.

"During his near 3-years out of the ring Fury subjected his body to insane levels of alcohol & substance abuse."

Everyone is aware of that. Fury was 31 months inactive when he fought Seferi. By the time Fury fought Wilder he'd been back in training for about 12 months, had two tune-ups and had been at an optimal fighting weight for about 4 months.

I don't know to what degree Fury was diminished in that fight relative to his championship debut, it's not quantifiable. But Fury evidently felt in good enough condition to beat Wilder in America, otherwise he would have had another tune-up or two. He underestimated Wilder to some degree but I regard ease of underestimation as being a great advantage in a fight, something that people have been guilty of in regards for Wilder for a long time. Fury would not have fought such a dangerous opponent, who was favoured to beat him, if he'd felt well below his best form.

Wilder had some factors in his favour relative to Wlad which are rarely mentioned: his team had the Wlad footage to study and they fought in a considerably smaller ring (20 foot ring vs 24).

Wilder also had some important advantages over Wlad as a fighter: quicker with a single punch, more explosive power in the right hand, more height and reach, more urgency/go for broke attitude, better track record durability-wise, more confidence in his chin and stamina. Wilder threw almost twice as more punches against Fury according to Compubox (231 vs 430).

The "logic" with Wilder is usually that if Wilder performs better than someone else against the same opponent (say his win over Arreola vs Vitali's), it must be because that opponent was in some way compromised or Wilder got lucky. It can't possibly be because Wilder has stronger attributes in important areas!

Fury was (correctly in my opinion) regarded as a top 3 heavyweight when Wilder fought him the first time, top 2 if Wilder is excluded. Say we assume Wlad would have beaten that version of Fury, which I seriously doubt, do you think Whyte (Joshua's 3rd best win) or Chisora (gave Vitali and Usyk their 3rd most competitive fights) would have even come close? Wilder's performance against Fury was significantly better than they could conceivably produce, in my estimation.

"Fury got stronger relative to Wilder the further their 2nd and 3rd fights went."

Yes but Fury's strategy was vastly more taxing on Wilder's stamina in those fights. He was pushing Wilder back, hitting him with more and harder punches, leaning all over him. The only fights that are comparable stylistically between Wlad and Wilder are Dusseldorf and Fury 1. In the 1st fight Fury was running around the ring, dodging dangerous bombs, which gave Wilder plenty of rest. Wilder was also totally unprepared for Fury's aggression in the 2nd fight, mentally, physically and tactically. Wlad was far better prepared for Fury's mover tactics than Wilder was for Fury's pressure and mauling style in fight 2.

"whilst Byrd clearly has the superior win resume"

As it stands he does but he had a bunch of losses too, including twice being completely schooled and badly beaten up by Wlad, who could barely lay a glove on Fury all night. Wilder also has two wins over a very skilled mentally tough southpaw power puncher in Ortiz (who himself may well be better than Byrd), plus a lot of southpaw experience generally. And Byrd knows that Wilder was a bad matchup for him, hence "Wilder is the scariest heavyweight ever, I'd rather fight Mike Tyson than Wilder based on Wilder's length".

 

"hadn't seen a prime Wlad."

If Wlad had produced the Ibragimov or Thompson performance prior to the Fury fight, people may well have said "Wlad's slipped". The Jennings fight was not really competitive, Wlad won between 9 and 11 rounds on the cards in America (despite not being allowed to grapple incessantly) and took very few headshots. But it was visually far less impressive than the Pulev demolition 5 or so months prior so people felt let down and underwhelmed, just as they did with the Sultan fight.

"By that stage Ortiz was clearly better than Wlad."

It's like saying Andy Ruiz was clearly better than Usyk because he stopped Joshua in 7. Getting a stoppage is not the be all and end all, they're not inherently higher level performances than decision wins. Wlad was never an inside fighter and Ortiz (who was a quality fighter in his own right) did critical damage on the inside, as well as taking much more head damage than Wlad and losing a greater proportion of the completed rounds to Jennings. Offensively Ortiz's was a better performance but post-Brewster Wlad prioritised defence, hence the 18 consecutive defences and extraordinary longevity.

And even if Ortiz's win was better than Wlad's, it's over the top to claim that that means Ortiz was "clearly better" as it's inherently dubious to make conclusive statements about a fighter's level based on one fight. Arreola KO'd Molina in 1, Wilder comparatively struggled and took 9, even Joshua took 3. Therefore Arreola > Wilder and Joshua.

"Yes, Wlad was past prime by 39"

P4P No.2 Wlad wouldn't have fought "the biggest threat to Wlad and next dominant heavyweight" - Steward, if he believed he'd slipped significantly. He also had home and A-side advantage against a Fury in his championship debut. The deck was stacked in Wlad's favour and he still got schooled. Then 17 months later he took Joshua life and death in Britain, despite common expectations that he'd get beaten in one-sided fashion.

 

The Joshua loss has aged very very poorly. There was a time when Joshua was thought to be the best of his era while now he might not make the top 5. Also Joshua fight was immediately after he faced Fury so they faced pretty much the same version.

 

It was 17 months after Wlad had suffered a humiliating defeat and been dethroned. Foreman didn't fight Zouski "immediately" after Young just because it was one fight later either. And 17 months from 39 to 41 isn't the same as 17 months from 29 to 31 or 33 to 35. Wlad was 2.5 years removed from a KO win when Joshua fought him.

I find it hard to see Joshua not making the top 5 of the post-Klitschko era. Aside from Fury, Usyk and Wilder, who is finishing above him? He's got a raft of wins, been a champion with an extended reign.

I don't think Wlad was fully committed to beating "little bro" Joshua, certainly not like Ruiz was and Wilder will be:

[url]https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/why-didn%E2%80%99t-wlad-finish-joshua-in-rounds-6-10.705786/[/url]

 

Joshua has gotten numerous opportunities he didn't necessarily deserve though while other fighters have been ducked and denied opportunities. A lot of it stems from winning an Olympic gold medal most feel he didn't deserve in the first place and his nationality.

His wins also are not aging well. Povetkin was past prime. Wladimir retired afterwards and Parker has been kayoed by Joyce.

 

That's all well and good but you didn't answer who other than Fury, Usyk and Wilder are likely to finish above him in this era. Whether he deserved the opportunities or not he's collected some relatively good wins. Povetkin went on to beat Hughie, draw with Hunter and KO Whyte. Wlad retired after but was Joshua's toughest and most competitive win by a margin. Whyte got close or controversial wins over Chisora x2, Parker, Rivas and Franklin. Parker got close or controversial wins over Takam, Ruiz, Hughie and Chisora x2. Joshua beat Ruiz who'd beaten him and Ruiz went on to beat Ortiz in a close/controversial fight. That's his current top 5 for me and he also has dominant or clear wins over the likes of Pulev, Takam, Franklin, Breazeale and Helenius, rounding out his top 10.

So while his record can be deconstructed (as can anyone's to a greater or lesser degree), I don't see how one could rank a Joyce, Zhang or Hrgovic for instance above him, even if you'd favour one or even all of them H2H. They'd all be huge underdogs vs Usyk and could have easily picked up at least one more loss against AJ's other opponents. Joshua's 5-ish year combined reign and 7 defences also count for something for his significance in this era.

 

Solid points. Though the cards had Wlad winning by wide margins vs Haye and Jennings and fan consensus is consistent with that. Jennings in particular did little damage to Wlad's head.

Here are some quotes from Wlad's longtime trainer:

“Tony Thompson is kind of awkward difficult guy to fight, and physically a big guy also, so a lot of the techniques that Wladimir can use on smaller guys he was not able to use”

“No one is going to beat Klitschko with just being a puncher and nobody is going to beat him by just outboxing him, but it’s the guy that has just that hard-nosed young guy aggressive attitude that has no respect, a little bit on the crazy side if you want to call it”

“It’s a really awkward situation because Wladimir is such an intelligent fighter that he doesn’t look that good oftentimes when he fights guys who are defensive-minded. He fights best when guys attack him”

“Povetkin doesn’t have the speed, skill or power to trouble Wladimir and he looks up to him, he has too much respect for him"

"Fury is the biggest threat to Wlad in terms of talent and toughness"

"Fury is the next dominant heavyweight"

It's also very clear to see that Steward also would have pegged Wilder as a bigger threat to Wlad than Povetkin, on the basis of Wilder's size, speed, power, mentality and sniper style, plus the fact that Steward regarded him as the 2nd best prospect after Fury.