Gonna start hyping you now for Saturday.

Boxing is all about stories, you see.

2004-2015, the doldrums

This story starts in 2004-2015. In this time in the world of heavyweight boxing, nothing much happened. Oh dear my story started flat.

The reason nothing happened is Wladimir Klitschko dominated all comers, nobody challenged him much. (He is now involved in Ukraine’s political/military leadership.)

Düsseldorf, the turning point

That changed in Düsseldorf in 2015. Tyson Fury had watched Klitschko’s fights from late childhood, always said he had the beating of him, backed up his words, dethroned him.

What was the result of that? Fury developed a mental illness. He had no mountain left to climb, no direction. He started drinking a lot. And what’s a lot to a 6’9" Traveller, maybe 30 pints a day, ended up like this:

2015-2018, three kings

Klitschko skulked off, Fury in the gutter, two undeafeted heavyweights rose. Anthony Joshua is a well-rounded Olympian. Deontay Wilder is not well-rounded, he’s just a smashing-machine. Wilder is a bad boxer but anyone he puts the right cross on goes to sleep: it’s a gift.

In 2018, Wilder is 40-0, AJ is 22-0, Fury is starting to recover mentally, has a few tune-up fights, and is 27-0. Heavyweight Boxing is now in a Golden Age, maybe the best since the 1970s, making up for the poor start to my story.

After 2018, who is left standing

Then two of these kings go head to head in a trilogy for the ages: Fury draws with Wilder once, defeats him twice. Wilder is humbled. Fury reaches a new level of greatness. Wilder has since lost to Parker. Wilder is more humbled. Fury remains undefeated.

Joshua is shocked by Andy Ruiz, but we’ll call that a fluke and it’s quickly avenged. But then a Ukrainian, Oleksandr Usyk, bulks up from cruiserweight and outboxes him at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2021. That was not a fluke: Usyk is by far the better man, and proves it again a year later.

Now

Joshua is humbled. Wilder is humbled. Usyk has risen. Only Usyk and Fury are undefeated. The bookies have close to 50-50 odds. The fight is this Saturday.