IF Tyson Fury retired undefeted after KOing Dillian White?

He didn't do enough to be great, one way or the other.

 

Undefeated with 8 lineal defenses. 32-0.

The problem for Fury is all his feats would have still aged poorly. Wilder, Wallin and Whyte are a fairly bad best three opponents for a long reign. Especially the latter two. It'd become clear he didn't fight the best of his era and the AJ fans would not let it go. But he'd be the opposite of Marciano because he'd have the whole "theres never been a HWs his size as good as him hes the pinnacle of evolution" talking point. In our timeline that talk quieted down very quickly after the Ngannou fight.

I think the biggest difference is he'd be seen as un KOable like Valuev. Him getting knocked down by Ngannou and Usyk another 3 times kinda flipped the script on that. Not that hes got a glass chin but for a 6'9 SHW he goes down a lot.

 

Don't forget the FotY candidate, lineal title defense against Sefer Seferi.

 

You mean like a ***** who was too scared to even entertain the idea of facing Usyk?

 

The first HW title fight set for 10 rounds in almost 70 years.

Made a mistake with WW2 think Louis had 10 rounders when he was defending the BBBC belt.

 

He did, didn't he? Then he came back again 3 days later, much like how he's "retired" now. The gimmick got very dull very quickly—a bang average HW in the pantheon of greats and miles outside the top 20.

 

Well without losing to Usyk, and getting decked in the circus fight, people would have assumed he'd have beaten Usyk.
So his rep would be better.

It's the same way many fans pretend AJ would always have beaten Wilder. That's better for AJ's rep then getting KO'd by Wilder, which is why he ducked Wilder obviously.

As for the Seferi fight, at least be honest about it and put it in context. It was basically admitted to be a 'run out' after three years away from the sport being a degenerate, just to get him back in the ring. Nobody pretended it was anything but that and it was stopped very quickly protecting Seferi from being destroyed.

The other missing piece is that Fury fought Wilder extremely soon after that 'joke' fight, when he wasn't even in full flight. He fought Wilder when AJ 'couldn't make a deal' with Wilder, and by now we know that's because AJ never wanted it.

 

he'd be looked at as an all time great by the super casual and u would probably still be seeing "fury beats them all" bs spoken in those casual circles. although straight up retiring before fighting usyk and aj would have been a clear duck the fanboys would still make excuses and convince themselves those are fights "he would have won anyway".

Although any boxing fan that followed furys career up to the whyte fight should have a pretty good understanding of what fury's legacy really was and still is post-whyte fight. when he was up for it he had some great nights although was clearly inconsistent with discipline. ducked fights throughout his career and looked awful on some nights.

 

He would be somehow of an enigma like Riddick Bowe was. Probably a bit overrated as Bowe was too, due to all the wouldas.

 

He can always come back, beat Joshua, Wardley, Itauma until he's 39... fight on and redefine his legacy. Then re-retire, again.

 

I rate Fury more having actually faced Usyk and losing twice than i would have if he never faced him. Fury vs Usyk 1 was the best performance of his career.

 

Usyk in that case still does what he does minus the Fury fights?

His HW scalps would have been

AJ X2
Dubois X2
Chisora

And he would have beaten a few other top ranked HWs let's say Wilder and Parker. Or Zhang or Hrgovic.

People would argue Usyk had better wins and besides past prime Wlad that Fury's resume was subpar especially if Usyk had beaten Wilder too. And that Fury ducked Usyk considering how he'd always talked about the problems of the Cunningham fight and his size and speed.

 

I remember well some sections of the fan base and the media saying Fury was a top ten ATG after this fight. So I still think that kind of madness would have persisted in some circles.
But, realistically, time would have shown his resume to be pretty thin, and one that probably doesn't age well. so I think if he walked away then he would have been seen more as a 'what if ' type of character, a bit more so than he is currently, as some of the mystique was stripped away by Usyk - and Ngannou, to an extent.