[tim palmer]

Fury is an all time great Heavyweight in my opinion, and it's reasonable to suggest he would have been a problem in any past era.

Really?  Wilder is not a great boxer but has one great punch and seemed to make in roads with his jab, Lennox Lewis would have destroyed him surely

[User deactivated.]

Fury is an all time great Heavyweight in my opinion, and it's reasonable to suggest he would have been a problem in any past era.

Really?  Wilder is not a great boxer but has one great punch and seemed to make in roads with his jab, Lennox Lewis would have destroyed him surely

Fury has convincingly beat all styles. Interesting you use Lewis as the comparison; head-to-head I rate Lewis as the best of all time. But lets go through with it anyway and put Fury in that era, which is either the strongest or second strongest heavyweight era of all time. Of course anyone can win on any given night but here's how I think he'd fare:

Holyfield - Fury uses his fast feet and 7 inch reach advantage and keeps it long, which he has shown he can do against better outside fighters (e.g. Klitschko). Evander doesn't cut the ring off well enough to get inside often enough, and when he does he has a 6'8 270+lb man leaning on him who knows dirty boxing just as well. Fury UD.

Bowe - Bowe when on form was a well rounded fighter with few weaknesses and had good size for his day. It would be a hard fight to predict. Fury has shown to be more exceptional in more areas, has faster feet, feints too well, and is much bigger. I'd give Fury the nod.

Old Foreman - very strong and hard hitting but also very basic and extremely slow. Fury dances rings around him.

Tyson - Fast and incredible at cutting off the ring, but my controversial opinion is that he's vastly overrated. Who's his best win, Berbick? Spinks? He lost to all the best fighters he faced. Fury actually has better wins and is nearly a foot taller (and knows how to use his size, unlike AJ for example). I think it would look like Lewis vs Tyson, especially against 90's Tyson. Fury KO.

Lewis - Lewis could do it all, his only weakness was not having an iron chin, but he knows how to protect it when motivated and Fury isn't a massive puncher anyway. Cagey start turns to trench warfare, which both know how to do well. Lewis' power makes the difference. Lewis KO.

There were other top fighters of the 90's like Moorer, Mercer and Morrison but i'd pick Fury over all those too.

In other eras I think there's only Ali that i'd be reasonably confident in picking to beat Fury. Prime Wlad (he wasn't that far removed at all) and Vitali would be close fights. Usyk will be a tough fight too if it happens.

[tim palmer]

I don't think he has faced sufficient quality to say he is amongst the greatest of all time (an old vlad is by far his best opposition).   He has been lucky to make it this far unbeaten, that cut against Otto wallin  , obviously he gets the benefit of the doubt within a fight but it does show he is vulnerable against modest opposition.

I think M Tyson's inside fighting might be very problematic. 

As for holyfield/Bo I dunno,  I think if you are going life and death with someone as limited as wilder with legs like bambie, against a well rounded individual who won't get so upset by the feints he would have even more problems.

Anyway it was great knock about fun on Saturday.

[tim palmer]

Edit: Bo-> Bowe

[User deactivated.]

I don't think he has faced sufficient quality to say he is amongst the greatest of all time (an old vlad is by far his best opposition).   He has been lucky to make it this far unbeaten, that cut against Otto wallin  , obviously he gets the benefit of the doubt within a fight but it does show he is vulnerable against modest opposition.

I think M Tyson's inside fighting might be very problematic. 

As for holyfield/Bo I dunno,  I think if you are going life and death with someone as limited as wilder with legs like bambie, against a well rounded individual who won't get so upset by the feints he would have even more problems.

Anyway it was great knock about fun on Saturday.

I have to admit that his resume doesn't put him anywhere near the top 10 all time heavyweight list, but like Lewis, I rate him highly in hypothetical head-to-head match ups, which i'm aware is completely subjective, but still fun to discuss! It doesn't help that Fury is generally an unlikeable character, who contradicts himself from one sentence to the next and has offered some pretty awful views on women, homosexuals, etc when he was a younger man. But I can't deny his talent in a boxing ring.

Fury is his own worst enemy when it comes to boxing: he hasn't lived the life, and again, like Lewis, he often takes his eye off the ball, leading to life and death fights with the likes of Wallin, which was actually not a terrible performance in retrospect. If I remember correctly he didn't lose many rounds, and anyone can get cut or injured in a fight, but not all fighters have a seemingly unbreakable will to win at all costs like Fury has, including some of the greats. Fury switched stance and his game plan to protect the cut while still managing to be effective. Yes, luck was on his side that night but he did the right things to make that luck happen, where most fighters would have wilted.

For all his faults, Wilder hits damn hard and has been one of the most successful heavyweights in history at landing his nuclear bomb (41 KO's in 44 fights), which is a very good skill in itself. Ali, Holyfield, et al. certainly lost to worse fighters than Deontay Wilder. You really do have to nail Fury to the canvas to beat him, and this quality, combined with his gigantic size and reach, mobility, excellent stamina, slickness, and high ring IQ is what I think makes him a stylistic nightmare for almost anyone! I'm not saying he runs the gauntlet and beats everyone in his path, in fact I think he's likely to get knocked out before he retires, but no one would have an easy nights work.

Speaking of Wallin, I'm going to back the underdog again and pick him in the upcoming bout with Whyte. In addition to his recent respectable win over Brezeale, that would put him firmly in the top 10 list, if not quite top 5, making Fury's win look not so shabby after all. Lets see

[tim palmer]

Indeed,  time will tell

[Nibile]

I was reflecting on mind games the other day, and on how small things that we say or do inadvertedly reveal, at a second thought, a hidden truth.
Fury-Wilder III came to my mind: "Once and for all."
Well, I think that in accepting that caption Wilder was already defeated, because in case of his victory, they would have been 1-1-1 and they would have needed a fourth match. This third one was going to count once and for all only in case of Fury's victory, for the 2-1-0.
Just saying.
What about the above if Wilder had won?
Well he didn't.

[rich d]

It was a really entertaining fight, but I thought it was at a pretty poor standard. Wilder looked gassed from round 3 onwards before he was knocked down. Fury looked rusty and ill prepared. Where it was great was the massive heart that both showed - although I do think that Wilder should have been pulled out of there much earlier (hopefully he's not been permanently damaged) but that was never going to happen after Breland getting sacked for making the right decision. The danger that Wilder showed even when in a zombie like state was nerve wracking. Fury should have listened to his corner and just "jabbed the mfkr"
Fury prepared and as switched on as in the second fight would have finished him much quicker.
There seems to be a lot of comment on how good Wilder was in the first round, I'm not sure, huge full power lunging jabs to the body that sapped his power and he then subsequently didn't throw another body shot all match seems a pretty poor strategy.
Good fight to watch, but I'm not sure all the fight for the ages stuff that has come out since will hold up, when Wilder could hardly stand up for 9 rounds through being gassed and Fury couldn't finish him off as he was really sloppy.

[User deactivated.]

Brook on points

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Good fight.

Brook's a bit bilt!

Interesting stoppage, but no complaints that I've heard yet. No belts on the line.

Good to see some decent respect between the two of them at the end 

[User deactivated.]

I didn't have a problem with the stoppage; It was a one sided fight and Khan was not far off getting knocked out.

Unsurprisingly I see Eubank Jr and Benn are chomping at the bit to get the Brook fight, but I'd like to see Brook retire on this win as, like Amir, he looked well past his best. Eubank and Benn couldn't have laced Brook's boots 5 years ago but I fear both would win now and have a name on their resumes that they don't deserve. 

Despite having been a world champion I think Brook has underperformed in his career. He was very talented but Porter aside, he doesn't have the marquee wins and I think it's mainly because of poor matchmaking. What on earth was he thinking going up to middleweight to face prime Golovkin? I think the eye injury sustained in that fight was the beginning of the end for his career at the highest level.

This weekend, Josh Taylor is back out against undefeated Jack Catterall. I rate Taylor as Britain's best fighter right now and will be picking him to win. He's been out of the ring for a while though by his standards so we'll see if there's any ring rust!

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Yes, I caught the back end of that. He's a great guy, and not a hype machine.

Didn't realise it was back in May though.

Funny about Kell Brook saying he doesn't like Eubank. Another boxer he doesn't like. Given how much he hated Khan, it's strange that he wanted his respect so much. Maybe if he wasn't driven by that as much, he'd have chosen more wisely  Khan was chasing names too of course with Alvarez.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Er.. bad split that.. for Jack Catterall.

[User deactivated.]

That decision has corruption written all over it. Another bad look for boxing. Judge Ian John Lewis isn't even trying to hide his corruption anymore scoring that fight 114-111 for Taylor.

I went into the fight picking Taylor to win but had Catterall winning by 2 or 3 rounds. Catterall coasted a bit late on but even the most favourable scorecards for Taylor shouldn't have seen him winning the fight.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Agreed.

Really gutting.

[DAVETHOMAS90]

Of course, there are far more serious forms of combat for him to address, but you know just how much courage and conviction VK will have in his role as Mayor of Kyiv.

[User deactivated.]

A brave prediction, but I think Bivol will upset the odds and beat Canelo in May. I think it will be close (which means Canelo will get the decision), but I think Bivol will be the unofficial winner.

However, if Canelo does win this legitimately then it will be his best win for me. A quality fight.

[User deactivated.]

A brave prediction, but I think Bivol will upset the odds and beat Canelo in May. I think it will be close (which means Canelo will get the decision), but I think Bivol will be the unofficial winner.

However, if Canelo does win this legitimately then it will be his best win for me. A quality fight.

Almost got this one right, except the judges picked the right fighter to win! 

[mrjonathanr]

Sounds like Álvarez was properly outclassed.

[User deactivated.]

Usyk v AJ rematch coming up. I'll go with Usyk late stoppage again for my prediction.

I'm hearing that it will be broadcast to Ukrainians for free through Usyk's YouTube channel. My second prediction is that there will be a lot of new Ukrainian IP addresses that night...

[Wellsy]

Usyk for me too

[moose]

Usyk for me too

I am not convinced that Joshua is a natural fit with his new trainer, Robert Garcia, who isn't known for working with heavyweights.  If Joshua had gone to Sugarhill Steward - who coached Fury's more aggressive approach for the second and third Wilder fights - I might convince myself he could implement a new, better game plan.  E.g. less passive - use his height, weight and power to try to bully Usyk - might not work but at least it would be pro-active.  As it is, unless Usyk's fitness really tanked while he was serving in the Ukraine, I just see a repeat of the first fight.

[Moo]

I think Joshua will come in heavier and bully him a lot more but I won’t be surprised if I’m proven wrong usyk is a class act.

[crzylgs]

Not this weekend but did any of you lot hear about the Eubank Jnr Vs Benn Jnr fight that is supposed to be happening?

Pretty shocking cash in on the nostalgia / legacy of their dad's fights, especially given they will be circumventing the usual rules as they naturally fight 2 weight classes apart. Really dangerous and a bad precedent imo. They had to bring in rules governing the amount of weight you can gain post re-hydration because there was a run of serious injuries and I think even fatalities in cases when a heavier fighter was able to shed a tonne of weight to make the weigh in, then come fight time had a significant size, weight + power advantage.

[Moo]

The celebrity ‘fight’ scene is an absolute shambles but who can see where it’ll ever end if people keep buying the pay per views