Ten Months Idle, Two Straight Losses, and a Gift Over Ngannou—Why Is Tyson Fury Still The Ring’s #1 Contender Beneath Usyk?

The Ring’s updated heavyweight rankings have fans on social media complaining due to the high #1 ranking given to the inactive Tyson Fury.

The former two-time heavyweight champion Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs) hasn’t beaten a solid fighter since his upset 12-round unanimous decision of then 39-year-old Wladimir Klitschko on November 28, 2015. Fury’s best wins since have come against these fighters:

• Deontay Wilder x 2
• Dillian Whyte
• Derek Chisora

Fury’s Questionable #1 Spot

Those are not good enough victories for Fury to be ranked #1 by The Ring based on his past achievements, which is really the only reason why it would make sense to place an inactive fighter at #1. Fury is a good example of a manufactured heavyweight created solely by clever matchmaking to look better than he actually is.

Champion: Oleksandr Usyk

1. Tyson Fury
2. Joseph Parker
3. Agit Kabayel
4. Daniel Dubois
5. Filip Hrgovic
6. Fabio Wardley
7. Zhilei Zhang
8. Martin Bakole
9. Moses Itauma
10. Efe Ajagba

Fury hasn’t fought in 10 months since December 21, 2024, and has a two-fight losing streak. His last win came against Francis Ngannou on October 28, 2023, via 10-round split decision. Ngannou was making his debut in boxing with a 0-0 record and came close to defeating Fury. I had Ngannou winning that fight 6-4.

A Manufactured Heavyweight Star

The Ring’s top 10 heavyweight rankings have a couple of fighters that need to be removed from the list. Moses Itauma has never beaten a top-tier level fighter during his short two-year professional career. He needs to go.

I don’t count 37-year-old veteran Dillian Whyte and Demsey McKean as contenders. I view them as lower-level heavyweights who don’t belong in the top 10 of the division. Itauma still needs to prove himself by beating quality heavyweights ranked near the top of the division for him to be rated highly.

We know Moses can beat older fighters, as he’s done that repeatedly. But there are doubts about whether he’s being artificially created by the consistently weak opposition that is shoveled into the ring for him to roll over.

We’ve seen this kind of thing done before, with fighters being matched against tomato cans to create a money machine, only to see them get blown out of the water when they’re matched against the real competition.

Correcting The Ring’s Flawed List

1. Oleksandr Usyk
2. Joseph Parker
3. Agit Kabayel
4. Daniel Dubois
5. Fabio Wardley
6. Filip Hrgovic
7. Martin Bakole
8. Zhilei Zhang
9. Bakhodir Jalolov
10. Richard Torrez Jr.