Quote Originally Posted by nuggetdotcom View Post
Fury has been around during a dearth of useful heavyweights, without being nationalistic about it the top american athletes at this sort of height/weight are looking at basketball and football or even UFC for more consistent and less corrupt earnings.

Having said that, it is not Furys fault when he was born or which sport he picked, he has made up for his situation by being a master of salesmanship (remind you of anyone?).

There was another dearth of useful heavyweights immediately after WW2, for obvious reasons, although Rocky, to his credit enlisted.

You cannot hold it against both men just due to these things, they fought and beat who was there, period.

Any talk about Fury coulda shoulda woulda is also relevant to Rocky, so its worthless hyperbole.

Geoff
I agree and will take it a step further- the truth is the heavyweight division has rarely been deep or packed with top fighters. In my opinion the heavyweights of the late 60s/early 70s and 90s were deep, and the remainder have ranged fro mediocre to barren. We tend to look back with rose colored lenses but when you start looking at challengers…etc., you see that outside of those two decades there weren’t many heavyweight divisions with a ton of elite fighters.

A big reason for this is simply due to the fact that heavyweight sized fighters are a minority around the world- meaning it is still less common to find humans taller than 6’3”. Add to that the fact that it becomes even rarer to find a guy that size who is athletic, a hard worker, and wants to participate in the sport of boxing. The simple fact is that the talent pool for heavyweights is MUCH less than the other weights- ESPECIALLY the middleweights (147-160).

Not sure how many on here competed but think of national tournaments- heavyweights would usually start at the bracket of 32- and the first couple of matches were easy until they started hitting the other seeded competitors. For smaller/mid- weight fighters you would have to win a few “pig tails” just to make it to the bracket. The 90s were the best heavyweight division ever- but it was an anomaly.

The heavyweights Fury beat were just as flawed as the ones Mike Tyson, Larry Holme, and Vlad beat. I would argue that he beat better comp than Dempsey, Tunney, and Marciano. Ali, Evander, and Lennox all beat better comp- but they were all fortunate to be around during those rare moments of deep/ talented heavyweight divisions. Can’t fault Fury for things he can’t control.

I would like to see him fight Usyk once Usyk beats AJ again- but I don’t feel that he has to beat AJ to prove anything. AJ is like Riddick Bowe to Lennox Lewis- he looks like he would be a good match up for Fury but his losses derailed the fights. I don’t see how AJ beats Fury- I don’t even see how he survives 12 rounds.