Fury is a shot fighter

he'll probably retire now so he can be 'undefeated' forever.

 

Someone listened to the Hearn interview today (Of course)

 

I already made this call in an opinion piece thread which the mods merged because I pointed out their anti fury bias.

 

There were clear signs of it in Wilder 3. Fury had been out for 20 months, was a career heaviest, very flabby. Had a lot more problems than in the previous fight.

Perhaps he was diminished athletically post-Wlad with the 31 months of inactivity, 10 stone weight gain and loss, drug addition etc., with the Wilder 2 style being a means of adding longevity.

Does Usyk make him look silly? Maybe. But people have short memories. A few years ago the consensus was that Usyk had a tough fight with 9 loss Chisora and couldn't compete at the top level. It's foolish to count Fury out considering he's proved people wrong time and time again.

The other contenders are nonentities. If he beats Usyk, Fury can retire with a solid claim to being the GOAT heavyweight.

Any record can be critiqued, fairly or unfairly. People did the same endlessly with Wlad, Lewis, Holmes etc.

 

Please just hopefully he retire soon, has enough of his BS. There are hungry heavyweights out there who want to fight each other. Lay down the WBC strap and let the divsion move on.

 

well he can't fight forever, and he knows himself he just lost to a novice and he is 35 now, so wouldn't surprise me.

 

Tyson looks like he needs to be motivated and needs an actual challenge. Wilder 3 was pointless to everybody apart from Deontay obviously. Like I said in another thread, Fury looked off against Ngannou but rest assured he will take Usyk extremely seriously hence the alleged delay till February for the fight.

 

Agreed. Most fighters have off nights and fans are quick to jump off the bandwagon.

Fury has abused his body and the inactivity is has definitely had an effect, he even spoke about inactivity being the downfall of boxers back when they did the heavyweight round table.

I’m still favouring Fury over Usyk but in a tough fight.

Lots of fighters out there that would either beat or give Fury a tough fight, Zhang being one of them..

 

I'm not myself 'for' or 'against' Fury, AJ, Matchroom, Queensberry etc. But there comes a time when heavies get close to retirement when it does become possible to review their career and where they stack up.

Fury just doesn't have the depth of book to justify the view he is one of the best of all time. I'm actually not convinced he is the best of this era (not new). He's certainly picked the best path of any fighter this era, if the objective were to make money and avoid stiff challenges in the 'take on all comers' sense.

The Vlad fight saw him outbox a stiff, beyond aged Klitchko who had had a rotten camp and was having serious marital problems. Only a clean lifestyle and determination got a near-40 year Klitchko anywhere near that ring. 36 minutes of tedium as far as I felt watching it, and not at all what I (a fan) like to see in the heavyweight division. Nonetheless a W.... so this is a serious credit.

Since then we've had boar meat, a couple of years out. Then comes cherry picked top-fifty fighters, punctuated by the only other fighter of note - Wilder. Wilder has a terrific punch but poor technique. I enjoyed these fights and was glad to see Fury win the second, what a performance that was. The third was gruelling and again the right result. So what can be said? Huge events, lots of pressure, fantastic job by Fury. But this was fighting Wilder and styles make fights. According to this forum Wilder is one of the worst technical boxers to ever get near a title let alone have a run. But he has equalizing and unorthodox power. Fury, a very good technical boxer, had his number.

Another credit then.

Outside of that we have a declining Dillian Whyte who was not just defeated before he got in the ring, but seemingly defeated before he got to a press conference (weird). And then Chisora, whose prime was probably against Vitali then getting punched up by Haye.

And that is seriously that. This gives us Wilder wins, and 40 year old Vlad. 2 people.

Forums generate hyperbole - the best become ELITE and the very good become BUMS. But in Fury's case I really, really only see two people who he has been victorious against. And I've always thought the Klitchko win was as much about Klitchko decline and bad camp as brilliance from Tyson (and as above it was a stinking fight in any case).

Is this seriously enough for GOAT conversations? If not, what am I missing about the likes of Pianeta or Schwarz or whoever the boiler plate lower quality opponents have been?

 

Hang on let's be honest here we are hyping up that "fight" Saturday as much as people hype up fighters.

It was terrible and everyone will agree with that but let's be honest it was similar to how Lewis overlooked hasim rahman, fury was too busy messing about with media commitments etc and had one eye down the road for the uysk fight. Almost certainly if fury had dropped him 1st round we would be hearing the murmurs if Dec 23rd for a fight which would leave fury overtrained (if he had trained).

Personal opinion is that only 3 maybe 4 all time fighters actually beat fury, that doesn't make him the number 1 fighter of all time but he's probably a safe top 10 all time great if he gets past uysk.

All eras are different but fury is just too big for most fighters and has a gas tank so doesn't lack stamina etc. I'd have him beating Mike tyson easily (who in my opinion is the most overrated fighter of all time), Ali and the older era fighters. He's beaten by foreman, frazier and Lewis (but would be a great fight) and possibly Larry Holmes and vitali.

Also I don't know how true it is but I'm told Andy Lee stepped up as main trainer for this fight and sugar Hill only came in late. If this is true any rumours of Lee taking over will ge squashed now.

 

I don't mean to insult you but there's no point in me going through this because it's a basic and in many cases non-factual critique, the elements of which I've heard a million times before.

"But there comes a time when heavies get close to retirement when it does become possible to review their career and where they stack up."

You start with a fundamental error. If you'd been around when Lewis retired you would have said "he's not a great fighter" and listed all of the reasons, fair or unfair, why he's not. Even close to the end of his career he was "glass chinned", "weak hearted", "limited body of work", "opportunistic fighting Holyfield and Tyson way past their best" and so on.

10-20 years later people have a very different opinion. Fury won't get the credit he deserves until he's been retired for several years.

 

I think it's fair to say that Fury's considerably past his best and that if he continues to box for much longer he'll get beaten, whether that's the next fight, the one after, the one after that etc. I think undisputed is his last major goal in the sport though.

 

"nobody can critique Lewis’ record"

It was heavily critiqued at the time (as is normal) and is grossly overrated today (as is normal).