Former world champion and Sky Sports pundit Carl Froch is still very firm that Tyson Fury is the top man in the heavyweight division - but he also believes a fight with Anthony Joshua remains a close contest.
Fury captured the WBC heavyweight title in February, after he stopped Deontay Wilder in the seventh round at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Joshua reclaimed the WBA, IBO, WBO, IBF world titles when he dominated Andy Ruiz over twelve rounds in December in Saudi Arabia. In the first bout, in June 2019, Ruiz stopped Joshua in seven rounds after scoring four knockdowns in the bout.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there is no telling when the two world champions will return.
Fury will face Wilder in a trilogy fight, possibly in October. And Joshua will make a mandatory defense against Kubrat Pulev, possibly in July.
Froch gives Fury the edge to win the fight with Joshua - if the two boxers collide in the future - but Froch admits his position is influenced by Joshua's two bouts with Ruiz in 2019.
"Who’s the number one heavyweight? If I had to pick one I’d probably say Tyson Fury and that’s just because I think he’s probably a 55/45 favourite. It’s almost an even-money fight and I’d edge towards Fury just because of how AJ got dismissed by Ruiz. He got beat up in that first Ruiz fight and that’s a bad chink in his armour, a real bad one," Froch told IFL TV.
"The avenged rematch doesn’t mean anything because of how the fight went and the state Ruiz turned up in: 20 stone; slow, a slob; lazy. Fair play to him, he did the job; I’m not criticising him. But it wasn’t the kind of fight that makes you think AJ’s back.
"He’s back from a bad beating. And that’s the only fight he’s had since a bad beating: a non-fight. Since he got beat up I’ve not seen anything that’s told me he’s back to what he used to be."