Not sure why everyone blaming Fury only, when Wilder/Joshua didn't happen for years for the Undisputed HW titles
The devil is the details. Not all situations are equal. AJ offered Wilder a career high at the time...Wilder declined.
I remember that and I thought the fight was a deal after Wilder vs Povetkin because he was Wilder's mandatory, but he failed the drug test. Those 2 really missed out on 8 figures, possibly 9 figure paydays just to go on and lose all the titles anyway.
Yet Holyfield-Lewis happened when it was supposed to. I think its fair to say, they don't make heavyweight champions like they used to.
Even when that one happened, it had been nearly 7 years since the previous one. Crazy to think we had 5 undisputed heavyweight champs in the 1990s.
Most ppl are like lemmings. There's one YouTube channel that covers boxing that I've particularly liked b/c I saw that the host was very fair. Lately his channel has turned into a "hate on Fury" festival. It's ridiculous. As I've posted elsewhere here, I was irritated w/Fury offering 70-30 to Usyk. I thought 60-40 was much fairer. But I'm not going to hate on Fury b/c so many, especially at HW, fights that should be made, just are not. And many of them do not involve Fury. I like Usyk and wish him well whoever he fights next. I like AJ too, but he seems to have a kind of Teflon about him. He's 2-3 in his last 5 bouts. AJ is fighting fringe contender Franklin, who was an unknown until he gave a good account of himself vs. Whyte. A Whyte many believe has seen his best days. Getting a fight made with a Franklin is easy for many reasons. Getting a fight made between the very top ranked HWs has become very difficult. Say what you want, but all 3 of Fury-Wilder bouts were between top 5 or top 3 HWs. AJ has his share of big name opponents but Pov & Wlad (Pulev too) were past it when he fought them. AJ-Wilder was never made, recently Wilder-Ruiz fell apart... many other appealing HW fights just aren't happening. I'm not giving Fury a free pass, but making this "HW frustration" all about him is a joke.
Beyond that, for me (at least from an American perspective) these guys were fighting 3-4 times a year in a lot of cases, and back then HBO did a great job promoting up and coming prospects, to the point the most successful of them on their way up were already well known to regular boxing fans. Back then HBO regularly had awesome content of all of these guys who were generally more active, and most of them were on regular HBO, where PPV events (for the most part) were reserved for fights that warranted such. Even in the early 90s with USA Tuesday Night Fights, you saw a lot of prospects and some bigger names rebuilding on a fairly regular basis. One of the big issues in America is that, barring those fights broadcast by FOX, Showtime, or regular ESPN - nobody gets any real exposure over here.
