FURY Poll...

Young man, a perfect post.

 

"Heavyweight boxing is at all all time low"...I've never heard it said otherwise at any time.

Many people were saying that in the 1990s...and loads were saying it in the 1980s. I can't wait to see how bad it is in 20 years!

 

Arguably the best of a bad bunch.
Although I rate Usyk highly.

 

Resume is irrelevant. A top contender from an era would be a nobody in another era.
Boxers like Schmelling, Tunney, Marciano are great examples of this, they'd be nobodies in the 90s.
You just gave to look at the available footage to gauge how good someone is.
Also, it's not just about skill, physical attributes play a major role.
Wilder and Foreman are not very skilled, yet their power compensates for that and helps them gets wins.
Fury is skilled enough. Couple that with his size and ring IQ and he's a nightmare for every champ there has ever been.

 

A fighter's record is surely key when rating greatness...in a head-to-head 'era vs era' sense, not quite as much (for some of the reasons you stated).

Agree with this, fighting him is definitely not your birthday! At the very least it's going to be a tough, awkward night.

 

No doubt Fury is a problem for any heavyweight in history and yes those old guys would have struggled in the later eras, largely down to the fact they were cruiserweights (Louis, Marciano, Sharkey).

However, resume is very important. To be the best you have to beat the best and face many styles. We’ve seen Fury in with so few top talents that it is still hard to gauge how good he is. Ali, Foreman, Holyfield, Lewis etc beat guys with many different styles and consistently fought too tier opposition.

Fury has fought 3 good names (one of whom I don’t rate at all, that being Whyte). He’s struggled against guys like Wallin and Cunningham who are no bigger than the guys I previously mentioned and nowhere near as talented. Yes his size and skill set are challenging for any fighter, but until he clears out the division I just can’t agree with the notion he crushes Ali, Foreman, Holyfield etc.

 

I think he has the potential to be an ATG heavyweight, and I give him credit for the things he's done in his career. It seems like his life outside the ring is more of a problem than boxing itself. That seems be the big strike against him.

 

Somewhere between "Great" and "No Giant like an LL" (but only Lennox Lewis).
Lennox Lewis is the last undisputed HW, and Tyson Fury has yet to make an effort to become one. On the other hand, Tyson Fury is undefeated and has a better chin and recovery factor than Lennox Lewis. Lennox Lewis was surprised twice in his career (he avenged those defeats); Tyson Fury has been surprised many times, but he has always recovered. Lennox Lewis is a key figure, the pioneer of the "modern super heavyweights" (there's also Riddick Bowe, but he didn't have as much longevity). If I were to invent a "dream fight" to compare H2H with Tyson Fury, it would be Lennox Lewis.

 

Yet this most overrated champion stands a good chance of beating any champion that's ever been before him.

 

Fury is definitely one of the three best heavyweights post Lennox Lewis. The Brothers Klitschko being the other two.

Is he an all time great? Time will tell. A fight and victory over Oleksandr Usyk could give pointers on this question. Tyson's one of those "Marmite" fighters - you either like him or loathe him. I fall into the former category. He's quite the entertainer in a rather drab heavyweight divsion.

 

This could literally be the dumbest post I have ever seen. Literally.

Have you ever actually seen a boxing match? It is not a rhetorical question.

 

Conversely, we don't know whether Tyson Fury could beat the top contenders of his own era. Since he mostly doesn't fight them.

Are all of the contenders Fury is currently avoiding greater than the heavies of the past?