First off, I definitely don't think he'll become GOAT. But people are really underestimating the opportunities he's opened up for himself with his win. I can imagine a scenario of consecutive defenses that would be, by leaps and bounds, the greatest series of successful defenses in HW title history. I don't think all these fights will materialize, and if they do, I think Fury will probably lose somewhere along the way. But if they happened and he won them all, he would be in excellent position to eventually become the GOAT. Defense 1: Wlad rematch Defense 2: Unifies with winner of Wilder/Povetkin (let's call it Povetkin, since his merit is less controversial at this point), unifying that many belts for first time in boxing history, let alone HW (and also beating the clear, dominant #2) Defense 3: Vitali exercises his WBC Emeritus status to come back for vengeance, but Fury still wins Defense 4: Joshua continues to impress, beats some top contenders, fights Fury for the belts, Fury wins Imagine if Fury retired at that point, and Joshua went on to dominate the division for a while, establish himself as an ATG. That stretch would then include wins over 3 ATG's and another fringe ATG in Povetkin. Easily the best title defense stretch in HW history. That would certainly put him in top 10 all time, although he'd need more to really stake a claim as GOAT. Let's say he retires for 5 or 6 years after that, and comes back after someone else has beaten Joshua and started to establish himself as great. Fury beats that guy at age 36 or 7, then stays undefeated, defending for a few years and 7 or 8 defenses, then retires again pushing 40, taking out some top contenders along the way. Stakes as good a claim as anyone for GOAT. Those are a lot of big "ifs", but its imaginable.
Also, at this stage of his career, he's in a better situation to make a run at it than Muhammad Ali appeared to be after Ali's upset win. All Liston had done as champ was twice beat the former champ, Patterson, who was probably the weakest long term champ in history. The win over Wlad is much more significant. Moreover, a dominant hw champ who was beaten during a long streak of title defenses has never really been replaced by another dominant champ who goes on to have a long streak of title defenses. If you go back through history, a hw champ of a major belt who has successfully defended three or more times has never been beaten and replaced by a hw who goes on to successfully defend three or more times. If Fury did it, it would be the first time in history.
