What Does Tyson Fury Have to Do To Be the Goat

He needs to do so much more! At the moment, he isn't even the definitive top heavyweight among active fighters. To be considered in the GOAT conversation, he would need to beat Usyk and then beat the top two or three guys of the next generation when they hit their primes. The problem is that Fury is older and doesn't fight often enough to achieve these goals. He would have to settle for being the heavyweight GOAT of the 2016-2023 era of boxing ... If he beats Usyk.

 

I think Tyson Fury missed the opportunity to be the GOAT with his first "retirement".
And now to write boxing fiction.
That Tyson Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko in a rematch, and then his career had 3 fights against Deontay Wilder, along with several other strong challengers (Povetkin, Parker,...), beat Joe Joyce, Oleksandr Usyk, and the next generation of young talents (Bakhodir Jalolov first of all); he would have a chance to be the GOAT.
Of course, to end his career undefeated.

 

He'd probably have to go undefeated in the next 10 years and face 3 opponents each year.

He'd have the most title defenses by a heavyweight, become the oldest heavyweight champion of all time and retire undefeated from the ring.

Then he'd have to walk on water and turn it to wine.

EDIT: He'd have to fight for 13 more years to become the oldest heavyweight champeen.

 

Fight more often for a start. That resumé as it stands, stinks for someone who wants to be considered as GOAT.

I think it’s far too late tbh, but if he could beat a top ten fighter (including Usyk) every 2/3 months for the next 2 years, then he’s knocking at the door. Not much a fighter can do other than beat the best of the rest of their era, then leave the boxing experts and boxing fans to discuss.

But that obviously is never going to happen, not these days of 1 fight a year, 2 if we’re lucky.

But the walking on water that someone mentioned above would definitely help!

 

laying it out in Point Form does NOT Change the FACTS of his career...

He beat an OLD Klit at the Very End of Klit's career, that happens to damn near Every OLD Champion.

He beat Wider Twice, so what.

ALL of his other opponents were considerably much smaller men and 2cd & 3rd Rate fighters.

He has Fought NO ONE!!!

 

Become undisputed and defend the titles against at least 12 ranked opponents.

 

Who do you suggest he fights? Going by that logic Holmes fought no one so he’s not great either.

 

I try to give credit where it's due, and Fury has 3 wins over Wilder, in my book. There are people ALREADY saying Fury is the all-time best LOL. He has neither the time, nor high enough level opponents, to come anywhere near the ATG top 10, let alone GOAT.

 

That ship has sailed, he is 34.

 

I like Fury, find him fascinating and very amusing, respect his exceptional courage and self confidence but he looks a bit off again lately and Usyk is a very, very well conditioned, cool cat .. well see .. as far as all time great, he decisioned a near catatonic Klitschko who was very slow and could not pull the trigger but he certainly didn't dominate him or ever hurt him, just danced to a decision over a man with no legs left .. two huge wins over Wilder but to this day I still don't know what that means scaled as Wilder was the most dangerous one trick pony in heavyweight history .. Whyte was a nice win but his chin is always a question ... will a ref allow a 270 Fury lie all over Usky and will Usyk's badass native crew allow it ? It can be an explosive scene ..

 

When Louis retired the first time he had 25 defences of the undisputed title and had beat some 30 ranked fighters, with only one defeat.

Fury would have to get numbers like that to be in the conversation. Won't happen.

 

Fury had multiple opportunities, that's the funny part. Having multiple retirements in the middle of your prime as champion doesn't help.

At this point, it's basically impossible but he does have a chance:

-Beat Usyk (convincingly, no split decision crap) and become undisputed.

-Beating Joshua is still necessary because Joshua has been the #1-3 guy in the division for the last 6+ years or so. Fury simply can't afford to retire without having his name on his resume. It would be like Leonard somehow failing to fight Hearns, their names are intertwined.

-Furys going to have to bite the bullet and beat some of these young lions. Almost every champion whose considered the best has beaten at least a few prime prospects. There's Joyce, Hrgovic, Anderson, Dubois, etc. Bonus points if he can be the first person to take away their precious "0". No strategic weaseling around waiting for them to lose or struggle to look for weaknesses. He doesn't need to beat all of them, but people are going to notice if he can't manage to face at least 3-4 of these guys when the division is heating up.

-Rack up some title defenses. One of the biggest problems in Fury's record is he keeps giving up his belts or failing to unify. This really kills his momentum. He needs a solid 10+ defenses while being active (fighting 2-3x a year) to even be in the conversation. Both Ali and Louis had more than 10 defenses so to have even less than that is kind of a bare minimum. The only exception would be if Fury came across a once in a century, A class elite prodigy and managed to beat him, but even then he should have at least half a dozen defenses. You can't be the GOAT sitting around for years rapidly gaining weight and failing to actually defend your title.

-Beat some contenders. It doesn't matter how good they are so long as they're ranked. You can only face the best fighters in the division. Don't play hard ball with the mandatory challenges having them wait for months/years because you're difficult to negotiate with, that's going to look bad too. And fight them while they're still good and coming off some decent wins. It's understandable wanting to face popular fighters who can sell tickets, but if they're unranked they're not going to do a whole lot for your resume.

-Reture undefeated. This one is crucial. Even if Fury manages to do ALL the above, it would still be difficult to label him the best of all time. However, retiring undefeated is an x factor, an ace, he can always play whenever this discussion comes up and is a very valid argument. However, it doesn't help his case if he hasn't cleared out the division and had many defenses. The "0" would be a nice cherry on top, but it can't be the main course.