Retiring now would certainly be bad for his legacy when he's so close to a fight for undisputed. H2H he's still the same fighter obviously, and I can't see any fighter ever he wouldn't be a very difficult proposition for. Natural boxer with great heart, great ring iq and terrific agility for someone his size. I can't see him sitting idly by when the Usyk-AJ affair is settled. If AJ wins next and there is another rematch he might retire for a while out of frustration, but otherwise a fight with Ngannou and then the winner of Usyk-AJ. Why on earth would he sit that one out? If he does he will have had perhaps the most frustrating career in HW history.
Most people who we consider “great” have five really good scalps mixed w a few great wins. Liston had Williams, Patterson, Machen, Zora, Nino…I think people tend to under value the Machen and Folley wins which are top notch imo. Foreman Moorer, Norton, Frazier, Cooney, Chuvalo. But I get what your saying. Not everyone has to be prime or great. Guy like Ruiz or AJ on his ledger would do him good but Usyk would take him to another level. he gets one more solid win and he’s right up there.
Confusingly is the short answer. He has five fights against top ten heavyweights, which is not that many in this conversation, and three of them were against the same man. Having said that, the average quality of those results, is unusually high. Any one of those fights would have made an impressive career best performance, and he was doing things to fighters that we didn't expect anybody to do to them. From a purely selfish point of view, I want him to fight in, but he must decide what is best for himself and his family.
None of Liston's wins outside of Patterson are all that great--they were oft beaten guys--and even Patterson with his chinny chin was there to be done. Cooney and Chavulo are similarly not first-tier, especially considering how Cooney was coming back.
Cooney wasn’t even top 5 in Foreman’s comeback (Moorer, Stewart, officially Schultz, Savarese, Pierre, Rodrigues). Chisora was better than Cooney both times, so was Wallin, and the draw w Wilder counts for something. I don’t think Nino would get far in this era.
ey yo take off your rose tinted glass 60's & 70's fighters can't hold a candle to a 6'8" 270 pound slickster. This is the era of BIG men but one BIG man stands out because he does things only little men normally can do all whilst being the biggest of them! Heavyweight boxing is physical and brutal. Joe Frazier for how great he was you see how he handled "big" George? He didn't.
Not really about era in my eyes but what they accomplished in there’s. I think prime nino does just as well as any other contender who’s come along. Can’t argue w u about Cooney that’s all debatable
when comparing ANY Fighters, it is about EQUAL & EVEN Playing Fields and in such hypotheticals Fury is 2cd Rate to those Fighters, and many, many more.
Are you saying biological men who identify as females shouldn't be allowed to compete against biological woman? BIGOT
Now now…Machen and Folley were at the tops of their games. Both top forty fighters argument for top 30. Patterson’s an excellent win even if chinny. Williams is a so so win. Some have him ranked high some not so much .either way he wiped the floor with him. I don’t disagree about Cooney or Chuvalo at that stage of their careers but they were names and accomplished fighters.