All the current top names at heavyweight – Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder, Andy Ruiz, Dillian Whyte (if you agree with this Top-5), have been knocked down; most of them in more than one fight. It’s heavyweight boxing, and fighters are going to get hit and hurt. It’s how they come back from the adversity that counts.
And Joshua, the reigning WBA/IBF/WBO heavyweight ruler, has taken to social media to ask fight fans, who has the better punch resistance and chin out of himself, Fury and Whyte. Joshua posted the question yesterday evening, and he also listed the knockdowns he, Fury and Whyte have suffered during their respective careers:
“Who has better punch resistance? The names below are who have put the fighter down,” AJ wrote.
“Fury – Neven Pajkic, Steve Cunningham, Deontay Wilder, John McDermott.
“Joshua – Andy Ruiz, Wladimir Klitschko.
“Whyte – Joseph Parker, Oscar Rivas, Anthony Joshua.”
Joshua asks an interesting question, for sure (even though he made a mistake in writing how John McDermott put Fury down; he didn’t, though many fans feel McDermott deserved the decision in the first of the two fights he and Fury had some years back).
The difference between Fury and Joshua and Whyte is the fact that Fury has never been stopped in any fight. Fury has been knocked down by three fighters, but “The Gypsy King” has always got back up to either win or, in the case of his first fight with Wilder, get an unpopular draw most felt was really a win. Joshua was of course shockingly stopped by Ruiz, while Whyte was stopped by Joshua in a non-world title fight.
So what’s your answer – who has the better punch resistance of the three men: Fury, Joshua or Whyte? I go for Fury, seeing how he left us all in awe due to the way he somehow managed to get back up after taking two flush and heavy shots to the head from the lethal-hitting Wilder, this in the 12th and final round of their first fight.
How Fury did what he did is anyone’s guess. And until he is stopped or KO’d, if he ever actually is, Fury’s chin has to be recognised as a very good one; his punch resistance world-class. But what’s your opinion?