Who won the war between Whyte, Parker, Chisora?

You are reaching again.

So that means the judges had scored it, without the 2 point deduction, 97-94, 97-94, and 96-95 all in favour of Chisora. Does that sound like cards that were favourable to Whyte? It doesn't to me.
I enjoy Chisora's fights, but he lost a close fight the first time to Whyte, got stopped by Whyte in the rematch, was comfortably beaten by Usyk, and lost to Parker (rather uncontroversially in my eyes).

Hearn might well of had plans for him, promoters like money. But Chisora was a bigger ticket seller than Whyte, and probably still is in the UK. Also, what is this "body guard function" you keep coming out with? Joshua is the one guy who regularly fights his mandatories, and Whyte has hardly been competing on the WBA and IBF ladders, and gave up on the WBO when Usyk stepped up to Heavy Weight, so you'll have to explain this "body guard" concept.

You are teetering on hater territory now:

"an old and worn Chisora" - he was turning 33 and later KO'd Takam
"AJ's resume isn't far beyond Fury's in depth", "it starts to look absurd to claim that AJ has a deeper resume" - smh, are you for real?

I'm a fan of Fury, and the way he dealt with Chisora 2 showed he was head and shoulders above the other contenders. Yes, Fury's win over Wlad is better than Joshua's, and the manner of his win over Wilder makes it better than Joshua's win over Povetkin. But suggesting his resume is as deep as Joshua's is laughable.

Fury has three top10 wins and one draw
Joshua has six top10 wins excluding Whyte

Hearn is a promoter, he promotes. Why does it cause you so much angst? And it's not like Joshua would be difficult to sell or boost.

 

Parker does need a major return to the aggression of his youth.

But he also needs some breaks to go his way.

He is running out of time.....

 

Chisora was extremely unlucky to lose vs Parker. Imo he won that fight. Don't understand how anyone gave Parker a big lead in that fight.

 

If the UD losses to AJ and Whyte were controversial then the MD & SD wins over Ruiz and Chisora were even more controversial. You can't have it both ways.

 

I would have to watch Whyte-Chisora 2 again and count rounds closely to know if I thought those scores were generous to Whyte but the refereeing was certainly harsh on Chisora and it changed the dynamic of the fight. The first fight could have easily gone the other way and the Parker "loss" was an absolute robbery. I stopped counting after 6 rounds because Parker had lost all of them plus the KD and he didn't win close to all of the last 6 either. Chisora has been on the losing end of a controversial decision more than any other top 20 HW boxer.

Hearn has been pushing for Whyte to fight Wilder for a long time now. The logic was that if Whyte wins then Matchroom would have all of the belts and could negotiate an AJ-Whyte undisputed fight and win either way. Whyte being AJ's leftovers means that him beating Wilder would reflect well on AJ. If Whyte lost then Matchroom would not lose any belts and AJ's market value would not be compromised. Chisora was seen as a washed-up journeyman on the way out even before he fought Whyte, who was seen by Hearn as a solid prospect, someone who could made AJ look better with his own wins and he was a big favourite against Chisora. Chisora had been in plenty of wars even by this point, had officially lost 6 times and had been stopped twice. The fact that he KO'd an even older, also worn Takam later doesn't refute any of this.

When we talk about top 10 are we talking current or historical? And are we using official rankings or common sense? When Fury beat Chisora x2, Hammer, Cunningham and Johnson they were all contenders with good rankings, mainly in eliminators. Breazeale was top 10 ranked at one stage but was he ever close as good as Wallin, who beat him clearly? Ruiz's high ranking was almost solely earned on the back of crushing AJ. Povetkin and Pulev were on the wrong side of 39 fighting away and Wlad 41 and 17 months inactive fighting away and defeated in his last fight by Fury. Whyte and Parker are at best nip and tuck with an aged Chisora as we've seen and when AJ beat Whyte he was nowhere in the rankings, Parker was another victory at home. Ring Magazine rankings released the other day have AJ with 3 wins and 1 loss over the top 11 (wins over 4, 5 and 6, a loss to 5) and Fury has 1 win and 1 draw (both to 3) but is ranked 1 based on the strength of the Klitschko and Wilder away performances and not being KO'd by a massive underdog.

It's Hearn's job to promote AJ, I'm not criticising him for that. I've also stated that similar Machiavellian considerations are there from other promoters and I gave the example of PBC's likely influence in preventing Ruiz-Ortiz from being made. But Hearn's motivations and influence are important in the officiating of his events and the narratives that are manufactured.

 

Neither can you. And that doesn't really address the point I'm making.

 

Well the poll is very one sided. Suppose that means Whyte won.

 

I’m thinking the Parker result comes down to a difference of opinion. i.e. we look for different things when scoring a fight. I’m guessing you put a lot of value on body work. Personally in these situations I like to get an overall picture using EyeOnTheRing.com. Looking at that you can see the fight wasn’t an “absolute robbery” as you put it.

Of course, I completely agree with this. I think this was the obvious strategy by Hearn. But you also have to take into consideration that Whyte manages his own career and those of other boxers. i.e. He is smart enough to understand that he can make the most money by going the WBC mandatory route, potentially beating Wilder and having an undisputed fight with Joshua (see also Povetkin, Ortiz and Fury). That doesn’t make Whyte a “body guard.”

You are using circular reasoning here. We are discussing whether or not Chisora was some patsy to make AJ’s resume look better. But any way.

Above when arguing that Chisora should have beaten Whyte and Parker you said “Chisora has been on the losing end of a controversial decision more than any other top 20 HW boxer.”

Then to counter my point that Chisora wasn’t actually washed up aged 33 by the time Whyte v Chisora 1 came around you said this: “Chisora had been in plenty of wars even by this point, had officially lost 6 times and had been stopped twice. The fact that he KO'd an even older, also worn Takam later doesn't refute any of this.”

There seems a lack of consistency there. Couldn’t it just be that Chisora was and still is an ideal gate keeper to the top 10. If you can beat him, you are a top 10 fighter?

With all due respect, you are trying to manufacture a counter-narrative to the one you are accusing Hearn of.

I’m using historical rankings. Personally, I see no value in basing resume on the standing of opponents in today’s Ring Rankings. If you want to go back and find out their historical Ring Rating that is a different matter. I try to avoid basing arguments in common sense when talking about World Rankings, as things look very different depending on which part of the world you are in. But I understand people don’t like to argue purely based on resume; at the same time, that is essentially what our argument rests on.

So, to be specific, I’m using PBO rankings.

PBO are a computer ranking based purely on resume. They were the body that produced the IBO rankings in the past, but they are now independent. Additionally, they keep track of where fighters were ranked on their ladder historically, so you can see who was ranked where when beaten (limited to the top 100).

Regarding Ruiz Jr.’s ranking, I seem to recall he was around top 20 when he beat Joshua, but I take your point; he was only PBO #1 due to beating Joshua, but if we are going to take outside considerations into account we could also say there were arguments that he beat Parker for the WBO title. And at the same time, in my mind at least, boxing operates on a ladder system, so I have little issue with Ruiz Jr. taking the top spot for 6 months (he was at the very least a top 10 fighter when Joshua beat him).

Anyway, with a bit of cross referencing, you get this:


Fury’s best ten Wins:
Klitschko #1, Wilder* #2, Chisora II #6
Hammer** #15, Cunningham #17, Chisora I #18
Wallin #26, K. Johnson #26, N. Pajkic #30
T. Schwarz #48

*also got a Draw
**served a ban for PEDs

Joshua’s best ten wins:
Klitschko #1, Ruiz Jr.* #1, Povetkin #2, Parker #4, Takam #9, Pulev #10
Martin #15
Molina #22, Breazeale #25
K. Johnson #36

*also took a Loss


So to summarize, we already established that we essentially agree that Fury is the man-who-beat-the-man.
However, you can see why, this idea that Dillian Whyte who was ranked #43 when Joshua beat him, making or breaking Joshua’s resume and marketability looks like reaching to me. And you can also clearly see Joshua has by far the deeper resume when compared to Fury as I previously stated.

 

57% of posters on eyeonthering disagreed with the result, though they have it far closer than I do. For me, Chisora outlanded Parker by a large margin (bodyshots count as much as headshots for me) and the punch stats support that.

Whether Whyte is fully complicit or not, he would have been performing a bodyguard function if he'd got the Wilder fight. But PBC don't like to make out-house fights with nonentities and Wilder wouldn't want to give Whyte (who's mad at Wilder for stealing his girlfriend) a big payday.

After Fury retired Chisora on his stool in 2014 the consensus was that Chisora was British level and washed up, then two years later he went on to lose again by a wide margin against Pulev in Britain. At that point he was seen as food for the much younger Whyte, who could be made into a contender, a bodyguard and add some shine to AJ's resume (Whyte may have been 43rd at the time of his loss to AJ but Hearn knew he had the potential to go much higher and look at his absurdly high position in the rankings today: Hearn was right!) However, it turned out that although Chisora's punch resistance and stamina were on the decline, he was still a legitimate and potentially dangerous gatekeeper.

If you go by PBO rankings then you can make an argument for AJ's resume but you have to consider that he was beaten by 20th-ish Ruiz, which should knock him down considerably. PBO aren't taking home and away wins into consideration, which is an obvious flaw. They are further placing far too much weight on past achievements: I'd imagine that Povetkin was still very highly ranked when Whyte beat him but anyone with eyes to see could see he was beyond shot and was shot even in the first fight that he won. The likes of Ruiz and Parker have been exposed as being insanely over-ranked when AJ beat them, Pulev and Takam too (what did Takam ever really do?) We also need to consider the ease of victory and I think Fury wins overall there as well, especially considering that he turned pro at 20 to AJ's 24. I'll place some of the highlights of the resume's head to head and make a comparison:

39.5 year old active Wlad away vs 41 year old 17 months inactive and dethroned Wlad at home
34 year old Wilder away vs 39 year old Povetkin at home
2014 Chisora vs 2018 Parker at home
2011 Chisora vs 2015 Whyte
36 year old Cunningham away vs 39.5 year old Pulev at home
28 year old Wallin vs 29 year old Ruiz
2014 Hammer vs 37 year old Takam
2012 K. Johnson vs 2016 Breazeale

Getting a draw with Wilder in America vs KO'd by Ruiz in America

Overall it's clear to me that Fury has the stronger resume as his opponents would beat AJ's, he did far more on the road, won somewhat more comfortably and didn't lose or get KO'd. It's also notable that AJ has never been close to being an underdog (closest was -200 vs Wlad) while Fury has been a dog on four occasions: Chisora 1, Wlad, Wilder 1 and Wilder 2. Fury has "overperformed" relative to his standard of opposition whereas AJ has "underperformed".

 

On the reverse 43% agree with the result. Parker got an S.D. win. Is that what we are classifying as an "absolute robbery" now? You could have just as easily made the claim that round by round using EyesOnTheRing averages, Parker won the fight 7 rounds to 5. So...

I assume the non-entity you are referring to is Whyte? Wasn't Wilder's first pay-per-view with Fury? So wouldn't that suggest Whyte had a pretty decent following at least in the UK, to make the fight financially viable. And besides pretty sure it's the WBC that sanctions fights, not the PBC. So, who is acting like body guard for whom, exactly?

Yup, Chisora was still a legitimate gate keeper. We agree. I can also agree it adds a very small amount of shine to Joshua's resume, which is clearly only true by retrospectively applying the current standing superficially on top of the historical context, which you already made clear to me is for fan boys and casuals...

And, as I have already shown, repeatedly,
1) Fury was deep in retirement at the time of Whyte v Chisora 1, and the bigger story that same night, was Joshua was fighting Klitschko next.
2) And if it wasn't the case before, by the time Fury started his comeback, Joshua no longer needed Whyte on his resume to make a claim for being a top heavyweight.

This is getting a bit tedious now, what does a list of your fantasy match-ups prove exactly? How about I make a list of my preference instead and list them head to head and pick who wins:
Klitschko v Klitschko (Joshua)
Wilder v Povetkin (Joshua)
Chisora 2 v Pulev (Joshua)
Hammer v Ruiz Jr. (Joshua)
Chisora 1 v Parker (Joshua)
etc.
etc.

So again, in summary, your narrative makes no sense, and whereas I agree Fury is the man-who-beat-the--man, now you are self-sabotaging what little credibility Fury's resume has. You notice at no point did I bring up that Fury has never defended a title...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, but I'm done