It confirmed what was already pretty clear.
When heavyweight king Tyson Fury (31-0-1, 22 KO) came off the floor twice to defeat Deontay Wilder for the second time last year, it ended arguably the most thrilling heavyweight rivalry since Evander Holyfield-Riddick Bowe. It also ended with Fury still on top. Pound for pound is fun and all, but it’s not really tangible.
The heavyweight championship is.
Tyson Fury might only have one alphabet belt (WBC) right now but he’s history’s champion and the consensus pick as the leader of boxing’s flagship class. That makes Fury the real best boxer in the world until someone proves otherwise. The rivalry with Wilder, one Fury could easily have been 3-0 in, pushed Fury’s nearly three-year layoff into the rearview mirror
The best boxer isn’t always the best champion.
Whether one considers Fury a two-time lineal king, or they consider him to have been champion continuously since the Klitschko win, is up for debate. Either way, Fury’s reign still has room to grow. Fury’s vacancy of the WBA, IBF, and WBO belts after Klitschko, and statements and retractions of retirement announcements, made it all a mess. The heavyweight division stayed messy enough in his layoff period between 2015 and 2018 that no one really made a complete claim to the throne Fury earned in the ring. Fury’s success against Wilder restored him fully as the man to beat and rendered the argument sort of irrelevant.
This corner sides with the idea that Fury has been the real champion all along but we end up where we are either way.
Where are we?
This weekend, tens of thousands of fans will cram into Wembley for Fury’s championship homecoming. Fury will face deserving longtime contender Dillian Whyte (28-2, 19 KO) in one of the biggest all-UK fights of all time. Fury is favored to win but Whyte has only lost to Anthony Joshua and Alexander Povetkin and has picked up solid wins over former titlist Joseph Parker, Dereck Chisora, Robert Helenius, and avenged the Povetkin defeat.
Whyte has earned a place in anyone’s top five at heavyweight, making this a strong championship contest.
It’s the sort of title defense that can add depth to Fury’s reign(s) relative to this era, something lacking so far for the “Gypsy King.”
This is where how we view Fury the champion does have some relevance.
If Fury is recognized as rightful champion since the Klitschko win, Whyte will be Fury’s eighth defense of the lineal crown. The three fights with Wilder would be both challenges for the WBC crown and successful defenses. The rest of the first seven historical defenses are a mixed bag at best. Otto Wallin proved he was a real contender against Fury but he wasn’t universally seen that way headed in. Wallin has since further cemented his place, making it a solid win in retrospect.
While the layoff and Fury’s out of ring issues, including a back dated multi-year suspension for PED use, explain some of the choices of initial opponents, those who argue for Fury as having a singular title reign have to reconcile Sefer Seferi and Francesco Pianeta, and after the first Wilder fight a contest with Tom Schwarz, as title defenses. Since beating Klitschko, Fury has defeated only one fighter who was a consensus top ten threat. Those Wilder fights were great but it’s still just one guy.
If we view Fury as a two-time champion, the non-Wilder fights contextualize as routine work and we’re getting his second title defense this weekend.
Neither is inherently a bad thing. Klitschko and Wilder, based on previous inductions, is probably enough to mark Fury as already headed to the Hall of Fame. The bar for heavyweights, in part because they are literally the best boxers in the world, can be a little different. Almost everyone who has won the lineal heavyweight crown has been inducted, including an Ingemar Johannson whose 28-fight professional resume is thin beyond his victory in one of three fights with Floyd Patterson.
Given his size, versatility, skill level, and proven toughness, Fury already matches up well with just about any heavyweight that ever lived. There’s ample evidence we might be watching a historically great heavyweight.
Great champions are a little different category. Fury still has time to be that as well. Whyte could be followed by the winner of Oleksandr Usyk-Anthony Joshua II and, if Usyk wins again versus Joshua, eventually Joshua anyways assuming Fury defeated Usyk to become ‘undisputed.’ The money Fury-Joshua for the title would generate is going to be massive no matter the conditions.
Fury has a chance in his next few fights to say he cleaned out his era. It might not ever be the sort of volume of defenses a Joe Louis put together but it wouldn’t need to be. Leaving the feeling no stone was left unturned would be enough. That starts this weekend with Dillian Whyte.
Cliff Rold is the Managing Editor of BoxingScene, a founding member of the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, a member of the International Boxing Research Organization, and a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
