Fury and Wilder status in their own era

It's a shame Fury missed his talent in a way. All his blooning up in weight inbetween fights and inactivity at different stages of his career.

To be honest people are pretty negative both had still have had great careers and obviously how many people would have said 5 years ago Uysk would dominate heavyweight he kind of came out of nowhere. Of course a lot of people fell into it. But we didn't know how things were going to pan out all those years ago. I include AJ in this as well even though he wasn't part of the question.

 

Wilder isn't. You hit it on the head. But he's in the lower end of the top ten with the wins over Stiverne and Ortiz.

Fury beat Klitschko, and also has credible wins over Wilder, Chisora, Whyte, Cunningham and Wallin, so he's all right. Usyk is #1 of course, but it is still a toss-up between Fury and Joshua to see who was the best post-Klit/pre-Usyk. They should fight.

 

Would we say Fury is a bit of a Rodrick Bowe type? Wilder more or less is… idk

 

Love to see a bout between AJ and Fury they’re both still in good shape and not had the sharp edges beaten out of them.

 

Aside from still having a big punch I think AJ is pretty much done as a world class entity.

 

Fury and Wilder got rated so highly primarily due to their size and h2h threat level. No one had ever seen a gangly tall fat guy like Fury use shifty movement and good all around skills be so effective at the world level. The closest I guess would be Buster Mathis but he wasn't as tough or as skilled as Fury. Likewise, men like Wilder who were 1 trick ponies relying on a devastating right hand had come and gone, but few were as athletic or explosive as Wilder who was brutally turning guys lights out.

It was a combination of their freakish proportions+their athleticism+their undefeated records that had a lot of modern fans ranting and raving about how great they could be. I watched this whole era play out, and basically what happened was Fury was the heir apparent after he took the baton from an old Wladmir. When Fury unexpectedly retired, Wilder and AJ filled the void and then avoided each other for years. The fact Wilder had the guts to face Fury when he returned, along with the Ortiz fights, gave Wilder much needed credibility since he had a very thin resume.

This simultaneously made AJ look bad because the other 2 perceived best guys in the division were facing each other in brutal wars similar to Holyfield vs Bowe while AJ feasted on guys like ancient Povetkin, Pulev, etc. It certainly didn't help Joshua had one of the most embarrassing upset losses to the Mexican Michelin Man Andy Ruiz. Sure, Wilder had taken a thrashing against Fury but he gave a good account of himself and Fury was an undefeated world champion many people thought highly of. Joshua had no business losing to Ruiz in the first place, so not much stock was put into him avenging the loss.

On paper, Joshua certainly had the better resume than Wilder, but who'd win between the two was still anyone's guess. Joshua racked up a few more decent wins, but then lost back to back against Usyk and recently thrashed by Dubois. Fury also lost to Usyk twice, but not until after he had utterly pointless rematches with an old Chisora and crushed the mediocre Dillian Whyte. In regards to Usyk, Fury was much more competitive than AJ and a vocal minority thought he actually won the first fight.

Rank them however you wish, but people had every reason to think Fury and Wilder were ahead of their peers. If you look at the top 10 throughout that entire era, no one but Joshua could've been realistically perceived as being equal to them in overall boxing ability. Even Parker wasn't doing so good prior to the recent resurgence of his career: Parker was getting beat up by Whyte, went life and death with Chisora, and was KO'd by Joyce. Guys who you wouldn't bet 1 cent on them being able to beat Fury or Wilder at their respective peaks.

 

The same logic needs to be applied to AJ and Usyk too. This era we really don't know our ass from our elbow.

 

Fury is one of only 2 lineal and The Ring champions in this era. Nothing wrong with calling him the second best as he deserves it the most at the moment, but this would need to be finally settled by the AJ fight, who was an unified title holder for most of that era and has deeper resume than him. In hindsight, Wilder can be rated below Parker and even Povetkin, but at the time, he was one of the Big 3 and nobody thought about rating those guys above him. Fury, AJ, Wilder were the dominant forces at the time and seen as ahead of the pack.

 

They talk, but never walked the talk.

 

You don't know boxing if you question Fury's greatness. Sure he faltered a little against Usyk but Usyk himself is equally as great. Both are special talents both out of physical prime but both still way ahead of their peers.

You find another top tier heavyweight 6'6 240+ in the next 50 years who can move like Fury and i'll be a fan. or another cruiserweight of Usyk's standard...these types of fighters are RARE. Fury & Usyk's rep will only go up as time passes by and we're left with a receding talent pool again which seems to be where boxing is heading.

 

He wet the bed against Ngannou too, losing on the one scorecard, WTF are you talking about.

 

I rate Fury far higher than Wilder. I certainly think you can make an argument he is the second best of this HW era - and thats perfectly credible.
I think the issue is \ was that both Fury and Wilder were quite happy to promote each other as ATGs and the two best of their era to boost their own fights - and devalue other challengers (without actually having to face them). Fury, in particular, was guilty of this. Rarely have I seen a fighter so over promoted by fans and sections of the media vs actual achievement (greatest HW of his era - without having proved it, top 10 ATG, best HW ever, etc). So I think part of it now is the kickback from him falling short of what he - and others say - he was, now that the dust has settled.

 

And almost losing to Wallin despite being in shape and Fury’s struggle against Wallin looks even worst in hindsight since Wallin didn't win a single round in 17 rounds vs a an old shot Chisora and Joshua.

Fury hasn't beaten enough notable opponents in his era. Wladimir who I don't consider to be a part of Fury's era as he was at the end of his career.

Since 2015 Fury has only beaten 1 notable contender in Whyte and Chisora who's a fringe contender along with Wilder.

Pretty poor resume for a decades worth.