Its not the best but as other posters mentioned, if Wilder is next, I'll take it. Plus, I honestly don't think Martin is as bad as some think. He gave Kownacki a really tough fight and took his licks in that bout.
I don't see the problem, he obviously has the Wilder fight ahead. Why would he risk that fight down the line? He is also building his profile. Sometimes boxing fans, in particular, UK boxing fans don't see the big picture. They want to see huge fights every time which just isn't realistic. It's business and those who don't treat it as such end up smashed to bits after war after war, penniless and broke. Where are the fans when these fighters finish their careers and can't pay their bills or muster up two sentences together?
Fury has deserved alot of flack over the years, but he is now not in charge of picking his fights with this ESPN deal, they have told him next fight he has to fight an Amercian next. That limits his options hugely.
That's it in a nutshell. People are determined to criticise him for this, but once he signed up to the ESPN deal it stopped being completely his decision.
That's fair enough, but then he'll come out and state that he's the boss and no one tells him what to do.
Of course he's not going to say that, would be bad PR. It was made quite clear after the Schwartz fight (it is in interviews) that there was a plan in place - ESPN want to boost his profile in the US and want him fighting an American. It's as simple as that - the issue is that his options are limited.
Charles Martin won his world title without throwing a meaningful punch, he was embarrassed by a 14 fight novice in AJ and had the shortest reign in heavyweight history... This is going to be a hard sell for ESPN as I doubt in reality that Fury would even use the guy for sparring
I don't want to see 'huge' fights every time. Realistically you couldn't possibly have huge fights every time because there are only about three or four fights in the division which would be huge. But, go back to the 90's for example, whilst I knew every fight couldn't be Holyfield/Tyson/Lewis/Bowe fighting each other, I still knew that Holyfield Moorer, Lewis Briggs, Bowe Golota, Tyson Bruno were logical, meaningful, acceptable fights. Fury is a guy who many are saying is the best in the world, and Martin is a guy who is seen as possibly the worst champion in the history of the division who has his paper title bought by Joshua. Bar Wilder his other three comeback opponents have been pathetic. So yeah, not every fight is huge. But equally, back when Lewis was trying to get a fight arranged with someone like Tyson, he wasn't choosing to fight nobody better than Steve Pannell and telling anyone who didn't like it that they don't understand the business.
Miller would probably be their best bet if they want to draw attention. Miller is a talker, has the controversy of the PED issues and might actually be an interesting fight. One that Fury could probably look really good in too.
I take on board your points, all valid but unfortunately, we are not in the 90's, its a different landscape nowadays.
