I'm seeing a lot of folks who don't understand the sport of boxing going berserk over the KO of an MMA fighter. These posters will tell you that defeating a 39 year old champion in his back yard is somehow worse than defeating that same fighter at age 41 with two years of ring rust. They will insist that this run of fights: Jermaine Franklin (top 50 journeyman) Robert Helenius (40 years old, coming off KO1 loss to Wilder, was never good) Otto Wallin (claim to fame is losing a close fight to Fury who is apparently trash himself? No power, top 15 type) Francis Ngannou (literally not a boxer. claim to fame is losing a close fight to untrained Fury who is apparently trash himself?) ...is somehow a legendary string of wins. What am I missing? Some of these brilliant minds even think that Joshua is now the #1 HW over the pesky Ukrainian who CLEARLY beat him twice in a row in his back yard. Others think he's now a harder puncher than Deontay Wilder. Incredible. Take a close look at the above run and tell me how it is remotely better than Joseph Parker's recent run: Simon Kean (top 50 journeyman) Deontay Wilder (former champ, considered a top 5 HW when Parker fought him) Zhilei Zhang (dark horse of the division, considered to be around the top 5 when Parker fought him) Clearly Parker's run is better. It's not even close. Now ask Joe if he thinks he's the #2 HW in the world or if it's the loser of Usyk-Fury I. The rankings are actually simple: 1a. Usyk 1b. Fury 3. Parker 4. Joshua 5. Hrgovic I've seen plenty of smoke and mirror operations in boxing and the AJ project is the most calculated. There's a reason Andy Ruiz and Usyk caused such a shock - it's because people have been sold an illusion and refuse to believe they've been had. There are threads on this forum speculating how Joshua would do against Usyk in a third fight, believing the previous 24 rounds to somehow be a fluke. KOing an MMA fighter is just the latest iteration of the same story. Try to be less surprised when this fighter either quits or gets comprehensively outboxed again.
I think there's a fair argument to be made about Parker being ahead of Joshua right now. Wins over Wilder and Zhang in the space of 6 months is by far the most impressive thing a HW has done in the past 12 months. The issue with Fury is he hasn't had a good performance in years.
The ratings mean nothing as if Fury beats Usyk he is number 1. Providing the fight happens. He has fought Chisora Whyte and Ngannou in a 30 month period. It is shameful. Parker has had 2 great last fights, but lost to Joyce who got smashed by Zhang who he then beat. For me it is clear on paper Usyk is number 1. Then it’s whatever takes your fancy really. AJ and Parker have been on good runs, Fury has some good legacy wins. Hopefully the division kicks on this year
HW boxing consists of two men Oleksandr Usyk & Tyson Fury and in less than 2 months it will exist of...two men who will retire one another. Then AJ will cry into his pillow about how it's not fair that Fury can retire 5 times every year.
I agree with most of this, but Joshua has a win over Parker. Therefore to me Joshua #3 and Parker #4.
Furys loss of standing is the direct consequence of his toughest opponents being badly beaten by AJ and Parker in the last 6 months.
Said this in a thread a few days ago but you are the reason boxing is in bad shape. Picking apart EVERY win to the atomic level and calling EVERYONE a bum.
Give it a rest...you have no clue what they will do. You aren't privvy to any insider info on either...
Pretty much this. Joshua alone has just steam rolled two guys back-to-back who arguable should have wins against Fury. Fury's 0 has had a lot of protection through very favourable officiating over the years. Parker himself just beat two top rated heavies back to back as well. You are only as good as your last win when you only fight once or twice a year and Fury looks past it on recent performance.
The only rationale I can have for people ranking Joshua over Fury is that with Parker so easily schooling Wilder it makes Fury's wins over Wilder less impressive and since those fights he's only beaten Whyte, Chisora and squeaked by Ngannou. But Joshua in the same time period has done even less with losing twice to Usyk and beating Franklin, Helenius, Wallin and Ngannou. So I personally can't rank him 2nd, but if Fury loses to Usyk and Joshua beats Hrgovic then yeah I'd rank Joshua above Fury then.
AJ smashed both Wallin and Ngannou who gave Fury hell. That puts him ahead of Fury for me. Parker is now arguable as #2. Zhang and Wilder were good wins. But let's not forget AJ has a much deeper resume than just recent history. Their common metric is Ruiz. Not much in it if you go by him. However AJ has guys like Wlad, Povetkin, Whyte as the backup choir. Old versions but still name wins. For me he is #2. Edit: Let's see Parker vs AJ. Looks like a good fight to make right now.
We can agree that Usyk, Fury & AJ are top 3. Usyk beat AJ 2x. AJ greatly outperformed Fury with 2 common opponents. If you take away Fury's belt, everyone would rank AJ ahead of Fury. He's only ranked higher than AJ because of a technicality, not because of anything else. If you take away everyone's belts and you're asking to rank the top 3 based on what you've seen, it would be Usyk, AJ and then Fury.
He just KTFO the man that took Fury's O. Since most people had Fury at number one or two before that, and Usyk already beat Joshua twice, that makes Joshua number two. It's not hugely hard to figure out.