Top 10 H2H Heavyweight's

I don't think picking the best guys based upon their second-hand resume-stuff is wisdom. You want to see them highly matched (he was) and look great (he absolutely did). In the end, Vitali matched many, many more ranked contenders than Fury and hasn't sat the kind of tests he has but because he's beaten more top ten guys, that presumably suits you better.

But it doesn't suit me better. The reason beating top ten guys matters is because they are among the best in the world. Well Fury didn't fight guys among the best in the world, he defeated Wladimir Klitschko when he was the best in the world, then the best in the world excepting himself in Wilder.

He's the best HW in the world, and that is beyond all dispute now. That puts him in that rarefied air, by definition. This is also true of the wonderful Flody Patterson who will not appear on any of these lists - but Fury enjoys nearly a hundred pounds and a foot in reach on Floyd. Nobody from "ye olden times" would beat Fury 6/10 IMO. Weight classes are more important than class when you reach a certain point and it's breached. The idea of Fitzsimmons or Patterson beating Fury is laughable - it is not laughable for Joe Louis though, for all we might agree that he should be a favourite.

Fury straight up elimintaes swathes of opposition in a way that Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano just don't. Marciano could legit lose 6/10 to Langford, Fury just wouldn't. That seventy pounds maters in a fighter of his speed, punch resistance and strength.

Fury will lose a fight like that at some point. He's a recovering alcoholic with a bad relationship with food and recreational drugs. It won't make any difference though to how superb he is right now.

As a note, this fight has fallen through because of trouble with the WBC. Sadly, Fury will likely wait on the Usyk-AJ winner, and don't be surprised if an AJ "injury" delays that to the back end of the summer. Fury might not fight until early 2023, so his run really could be over.

Given the brilliance of his second performance against Wilder, I find that claim rather shocking, but either way, he'd be bringing 270lbs to the ring against these guys and boxing beautifully for 12 rounds anyway.

I absolutely reject this. You're marrying two things that have literally zero to do with each other.

 

He knows a lot about boxing (and other stuff).

 

BECAUSE I ****ING SAID SO

 

He is at "world level" but not in the top two. At the very highest level (in so far as ranked fighters are concerned) he is unknown. In other words, he hasn't proven himself against the fighters nearest to the company we're bein asked about here in the way Fury has. Unless you think some of the guys that Vitali beat are better than old Wlad or prime Wilder (not impossible I suppose, but outside your stated comfort zone).

I understand, and I understand what they are.

But my guess is that you will have fewer reservations about the 90lb lighter cruiserweight Rocky Marciano, who beat fighters old Wlad would have butchered but did so more consistently.

He also nearly lost to a Norther-Irish taxi-driver. But all fighters have pre-prime struggles that predate their becoming prime. You probably don't want to talk about Rocky's worst performances from his formative days either, and why would you really? They are likely no more relevant than Louis's destruction at the hands of Marciano in determining how he would do against Riddick Bowe.

If you think it's harder to fight 245lb Fury than 275lb, I won't argue with you. I will just point out that 245lb Fury is a fighter who has never existed and 270lb Fury looked amazing in Wilder II - absolutely incredible, ragdolling one of the greatest punchers in HW history, whose shots hw has also absorbed and survived btw.

He has huge advantages over his peers. And I don't "rule out" smaller ATG fighters beating him all-together, I probably went too far there, what i'm saying is that if you saw Rocky and Fury at the weigh in you would be far braver in picking Marciano than I am in elevating Fury. I honestly don't think that during the staredown, anyone being honest with themselves would pick small cruiserweight Rocky to beat the huge Fury. I just don't think anyone would do it.

 

Yeah, he's not the best fighter in the world in the same way that nobody is indisputably the GOAT head to head. It's an unknowable.

But he is universally recognised as the world's number one heavy by anyone that mattes, in addition to being the lineal. That's pretty good.

 

I don't see the value of listing the guys who beat Vitali as evidence of his standing other than to define where is roof is.

That's why you've been doing it for years.

 

OK.

All due respect to your friends, but I don't know them. I don't know Steven Bunce either, but he calls Fury "enormous, the biggest man I've ever shared a coffee with".

Rich Power, who didn't just meet him but fought him said of his size, "you feel like it can't be real. Just how big is he?"

Lee Swaby: "Imagine your first day at school. Imagine that you're a little kid in school and the three-years-older-than-you guy walks up to you and says, 'Me and you are going to fight,'" Swaby said. "Firstly, that's how you feel because you're small in comparison. Even though you're a grown man at this point, you're looking at essentially a guy that is three years above you in school in stature."And you're thinking 'Oh my word.'"

There's a lot more, but I'm basically dismissing your friends out of hand in favour of the professionals, sparring partners and journalists who have shared a space with Fury and denote him a colllosus.