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

A physical artefact is what legitimizes a championship claim? Belts are made to keep your pants up, @tinman, or as chips to bargain with in the case of boxing. The lineage has always existed, and taking the lineage over by defeating an established king will always mean more than scraping together some paper belts of vacant origin (which can only beget a new lineage if the previous one has been permanently abandoned, which Tyson's never was, as he campaigned for the return of his license for eighteen months and asserted his lineal status throughout that period). We already did this earlier in the thread;

Any true, long-time student of the sport already knows and understands this stuff, whether they are honest about it in this particular case or not.

 

"No active fighter has a heavyweight reign except Fury"

If he'd said that it would have been a consistent argument but under the assumption that there are 24 heavyweight champions since mid-2003 including Joshua and Usyk, the claim that Wilder didn't have a "legitimate reign" implies that the 18+ titlists below him also didn't have "legitimate reigns". And at that point, saying Wilder's reign was illegitimate means little to nothing as the overwhelming majority of champions are illegitimate by his definition.

 

Seeks to diminish Wilder in order to diminish Fury in order to boost Usyk. He is transparent, even as he tries to be cute.

 

Many believe that Povetkin (who is a bit of an outlier) had a better résumé than long-reigning champ Vitali. Yet I don't see people questioning the legitimacy of Vitali's reign based on the quality of his opposition.

 

I don't see anyone claiming Vitali had a good resume. Nobody argues about it because 95% of the community agree his resume is weak.

 

The argument wasn't whether Wilder's record is relatively strong or weak, it's whether Wilder's reign was "legitimate". One school of thought is that the only champion is the lineal champion, which would make Wlad and Fury the only legitimate heavyweight champions since Lewis. The other school of thought is that there are 24 heavyweight champions since Lewis's last fight, including Vitali, Wilder, Joshua and Usyk. If Wilder's reign was illegitimate due to the quality of his opposition then at least 18 champions during this period had illegitimate reigns and Vitali could easily be thrown in too as the best opponents he fought during his reign weren't as good as Fury or Ortiz.

 

Was Vitali's title reign also illegitimate?

And if Wilder's reign was illegitimate but he's got a top 6 post-Lewis record among 24 heavyweight titlists by consensus, which reigns during that period are legitimate?

 

Many like to trash Wilder's boxing record due to irrelevant factors like beating up a hooker and wanting to catch a body (like Tyson, who you moronically and inconsistently defend) but since you chose to ignore the question, which non-lineal reigns post-Lewis were "legitimate"?

Byrd? Jones? Sanders? J. Ruiz? Brewster? Vitali? Rahman? Valuev? Liakhovich? Maskaev? Briggs? Chagaev? Ibragimov? Peter? Haye? Stiverne? Martin? Joshua? Parker? A. Ruiz? Usyk?

 

Fury, because he's the man that beat the man, but I think they are making a big mistake fighting an orthodox plodder to prepare for Usyk. To have a shot to beat Usyk you need to get out of your comfort zone in prep and tune up fight. Chisora does nothing for Fury if then he fights Usyk after that. They should've rematched southpaw Wallin in Dec to get that sharpness and practice in against a southpaw.

 

You hate Wilder for irrelevant reasons. Most agree he's got a top 6 post-2005 record among HW champions, so if he's illegitimate then so is nearly everyone else.

 

That's a really specific way to frame your argument.

 

You’re up early today Neet, I know it’s not for work so you must have wet the bed or something?