As much as some of you want to rewrite history, nobody gave a shit about Fury when he beat Wlad outside of boxing. This doesn’t take anything away from his performance. The closest he got to being more than just some literal giant fighter before the Wlad win was the fight with Haye that fell through.

AJ is the the winner of this poll in reality, I suspect a lot of the votes are from people who have enjoyed Fury since the Wilder fights mostly. AJ fought Whyte 2 weeks after Fury beat Wlad and that’s when the ball really got rolling with AJ.

Perhaps Fury’s absence made way for AJs come up to be even bigger, but he was the most exciting prospect in the division and was guaranteed entertainment and excitement at this point, he was a wrecking ball on a path of destruction with the power of sky sports marketing, Matchroom, lots of sponsorship deals behind him and let’s face it, women love him.

This doesn’t mean Fury didn’t play a part, because he came back and took those Wilder fights and made himself what he is today on a popularity level, and he continues to provide good entertainment aside from the completely stupid antics. He really did a good job at reinventing himself and he’s pretty popular all round but there’s a certain demographic of coke sniffing binge drinking geezers in particular who absolutely love a bit of fury in the UK. These are the guys that fill out pubs and stadiums. But all this came a few years after the Wlad win.

In hindsight yes Fury has turned out to be the better fighter, which considering he’s been around so long and he dethroned Wlad should be no surprise, but he was boring as fuck to watch until the last few years, even as a boxing fan. He didn’t really fight anybody exciting and when he did (chisora 1&2) he made it look so easy that it seemed completely unfair.

I do think he always had the personality and charisma to end up where he is now, but maybe at the time the competition wasn’t quite up to par with him and he wasn’t quite ready to be the Tyson Fury he is today, but he went awol and it took him a few years longer which is still much better for us fans now. On top of it, Joshua came through as the ying to Fury’s yang and although Joshua has said a lot less out of the pair, the rivalry and potential of a fight between them both has absolutely stirred up their profiles amongst the media and casual fans as well.

Joshua fucked up and lost to Ruiz and now Usyk x2 while Fury has been getting good popularity boosting, entertaining and quality performances at the same time, which has made him look better whilst making Joshua look even worse and has allowed him to take over in aspects other than simply being the better boxer. Joshua is still as popular even with the losses.

There’s my take as a UK fan that has followed boxing pre dating and during both fighters entire careers. I’m sure some will disagree, but that’s how I’ve seen it as it’s gone by