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The guy I keep suggesting is Charles Martin. I know he's with Haymon so it's probably not the easiest thing to put together, but he was on the undercard of Fury-Wilder 2 and scored a nice-looking KO win over Gerald Washington. He's tall, comes into fights in decent shape and has the novelty value of being a southpaw. He's also a former world titlist (even if he was a joke champ) and he's a former Joshua opponent so you can compare performances ahead of a Fury-Joshua showdown.
If Haymon doesn't want to play ball, I guess Helenius would be the next best thing. He's never been all that good at the world level, but at least he's been there. He's coming off that big upset over Kownacki, he's tall and can punch, so if nothing else he at least looks the part.
If neither of those work out, then I guess you'd have to make do with Kabayel. He's unbeaten, but I watched some footage of him earlier and he's so slow and shambling that I think it'll become evident very quickly that it's a total mismatch. However, it is a good chance for Fury to look good, move around, tee off, maybe score the stoppage late.
No matter what though I think Takam is a bad idea. He's had multiple attempts at taking the scalp of a name opponent and has always been game, but has ended up second best every time, even against Chisora. I don't think he has a chance to win, but the real problem is that I can see that fight in my mind's eye and it's an ugly one. Takam is relatively small and compact for a heavyweight and if he bends down he's going to be hard to hit clean. For all of Fury's other talents, the sharpness and precision of his shots is actually somewhat average or even below average, and I can see him missing a lot, whereas Takam's not going to be in range to hit back either. The way I see it, there'll be a lot of missing, a lot of clinching, not very much landed clean either way. Fury will win every round but it'll be a slow and dull fight that'll go the distance and few will enjoy watching, casuals least of all.
It's not so much about who's going to pose real danger, because I realise that's not the point of this fight. Some of these guys pose more danger than others for sure but I don't think any of them ultimately have a significant chance to pull off an upset. It's about what fight's going to make Fury look good and hype people up for him to fight Joshua. For what it's worth Joshua also has to do his part and win convincingly against Pulev.
If Haymon doesn't want to play ball, I guess Helenius would be the next best thing. He's never been all that good at the world level, but at least he's been there. He's coming off that big upset over Kownacki, he's tall and can punch, so if nothing else he at least looks the part.
If neither of those work out, then I guess you'd have to make do with Kabayel. He's unbeaten, but I watched some footage of him earlier and he's so slow and shambling that I think it'll become evident very quickly that it's a total mismatch. However, it is a good chance for Fury to look good, move around, tee off, maybe score the stoppage late.
No matter what though I think Takam is a bad idea. He's had multiple attempts at taking the scalp of a name opponent and has always been game, but has ended up second best every time, even against Chisora. I don't think he has a chance to win, but the real problem is that I can see that fight in my mind's eye and it's an ugly one. Takam is relatively small and compact for a heavyweight and if he bends down he's going to be hard to hit clean. For all of Fury's other talents, the sharpness and precision of his shots is actually somewhat average or even below average, and I can see him missing a lot, whereas Takam's not going to be in range to hit back either. The way I see it, there'll be a lot of missing, a lot of clinching, not very much landed clean either way. Fury will win every round but it'll be a slow and dull fight that'll go the distance and few will enjoy watching, casuals least of all.
It's not so much about who's going to pose real danger, because I realise that's not the point of this fight. Some of these guys pose more danger than others for sure but I don't think any of them ultimately have a significant chance to pull off an upset. It's about what fight's going to make Fury look good and hype people up for him to fight Joshua. For what it's worth Joshua also has to do his part and win convincingly against Pulev.
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