Who is the man at heavy...Usyk or Fury?

You assert (based on speculation) that Ruiz has declined due to his lifestyle but there are no such excuses for the significantly older Wilder, despite taking massive damage from Fury.

If Wilder's record sucks relative to his contemporary Joshua, why do most on this forum believe that he would iron Joshua out? Either you are not evaluating the record as most others do or the record is not regarded as being so important. Losing and drawing with Fury is nothing to be ashamed of really, losing to Andy Ruiz = shame, even Usyk to some degree as he's so much smaller.

 

It's medically factual that taking a lot of hard blows to the head is bad for your punch resistance, yet Foreman had a good chin in his late 40's. No universal conclusions can be drawn. 33 year old Ruiz showed a good chin at 268 lbs against Ortiz, who he'd been ducking for years but still beat.

Wilder was being favoured to beat Joshua on at least one decent sized poll on this forum pre-Helenius. Many if not most believe that Joshua's losses to Ruiz and Usyk x2 are worse than Wilder's losses to Fury x2 and the draw. This aspect of Joshua's record is perceived as being weaker, maybe far weaker, than Wilder's.

What is a "legitimate body of work for a champion"? If you look at all of the belt holders since 2004, the only champions with better or at least arguably better bodies of work than Wilder are the Klitschko's, Fury, Joshua and Usyk. There are more than two dozen champions over this period aside from that and by your logic, they're all "illegitimate".

 

"Legitimate body of work for a champion" has no meaning if out of 24 heavyweight champions over a 19 year period, the champion with the 6th best record (at worst) isn't a legitimate champion.

 

What I'm saying is very clear to anyone with a modicum of intelligence. Of all the champions since Lewis retired, Wilder has a top 6 record. If Wilder's championship record is "illegitimate" then at least 18 heavyweight champions since 2003 are even less legitimate.

Wilder is very unpopular for the same Mike Tyson-esque reasons that you are on record disliking him for (no doubt among others) yet he's still ranked highly, despite all of the standard criticisms.

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/who-are-the-top-ten-greatest-heavyweights-since-2005.686316/

Posted May 2022, "top 10 greatest post-2005 HW's":

@Finkel ranked Wilder 5th

@DaRealJT ranked Wilder 5th

@Potwash ranked Wilder 5th

@Lesion of Doom ranked Wilder 4th

@Liquorice ranked Wilder 6th

@It's Ovah ranked Wilder 6th

@Dubblechin wasn't explicit but ranked Wilder in the top 4

@Furey ranked Wilder 4th

@Austinboxing ranked Wilder 5th

@GGGfans ranked Wilder 5th

There are outliers that you can look up in the thread but that's a pretty solid consensus, especially considering that many of the above are neutral or more negative than positive towards Wilder.

 

You probably forgot Fury chickened out of a 100 million fight against Usyk back in february.

See, Fury himself diagrees with you. Actions speak more than a million words.

 

What is your argument? Usyk is the man because you think Fury ducked him. Your mind is made up

 

Dunno, but a match-up between the 2 is mouthwatering.

 

You don't speak for the whole boxing community mate lol. You are letting your hate for wilder cloud your judgement that's all.

 

And yet a non title holder in Povektin has a better body of work than Wilder. A 10 defense champion should not have a comparable resume to a non title holder. That's a disgrace.

 

That guy is not an honest guy.

Quarreling over reigns is actually moot, though. No active fighter has a heavyweight reign except Fury, the rest are contenders with paper titles. Wilder was no more a seven or ten-defense champion heading into his first couple bouts with Fury than Joshua was a six-defense champion heading into his bout with Andy the Tacos al Pastor con Queso Destroyer. The modern era has created an unfortunate distinction between holding a title (or even titles) and being the champion of a division.

But who were the heavyweight dangermen deemed to be in 2018? There's no doubt that Wilder was widely perceived as being one of the two chief threats to a returning Tyson's claim at that time.

 

Lineal title is intangible. You cannot grasp the title in your hands. Therefore, it doesn't exist.