I know it may sound a bit of an overreaction to say Fury is the greatest boxer ever so soon after one of his finest moments in a boxing ring, but it has to be a conversation at the very least. Fury and Tyson do share similarities not just in their domination in the ring, but also their problems outside it. Both could possibly have been better fighters if they were more concentrated on boxing, but in both cases it did not hurt them that much.
Of course, when having this debate in sport judging two people in different generations you can almost always tell who’s going to say which one of them is the best. It’s really impossible to have an answer for it, but to say they are not in the same conversation is wrong. It is clear that he is the best heavyweight boxer around now, with all the other contenders like Joshua, Usyk, Wilder and Whyte arguably nowhere near his level and it looks like Fury will dominate the division for a while yet.
There is a debate to be had about if the division is what it used to be in its heyday and to be honest it’s probably not. There are not many boxers today up there with the likes of Evander Holyfield or Lennox Lewis and there does not seem to be the same number of fights between the top boxers as there use to be.
I could be wrong there, but it seems to me that twenty years ago the like of Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury would have had at least a couple of fights by this stage. I know that there was a fight arranged that got cancelled due to covid, but with Joshua having a rematch with Usyk scheduled we may never see them fight and that is a real shame.
Tyson and Fury are special for different reasons, Tyson being this charismatic, troubled figure known for his knockout power and Fury being this man who looks more like a middle-aged farmer than the world class boxer that he is. Fury still has time to show the world that he is better than Tyson and if he keeps up to this world class level and avoids any Buster Douglas type embarrassments he could go down in the record books as the greatest heavyweight of the last 50 years if not ever.
