> nepo at candidates was in my opinion favored to beat magnus...he dominated the candidates harder than anyone else has in the history of the candidate matches - and it was not an easy pool of candidates, either.
What about Fischer? The format was a little different then, but here was his route to the Championship.
1. Won the Interzonal tournament 18.5/23 (+15-1=7). The top 8 from the Interzonal then played a knockout series of matches using a bracket system.
2. In his quarter-final match of that he beat Taimanov 6-0.
3. In his semi-final match against Larsen he also won 6-0.
4. In his final match against former world champion Tigran Petrosian, he won 6.5-2.5 (+5-1=3).
In the 21 games total that his candidates matches lasted, he won 17 games, lost 1, and drew 3. If we include the Interzonal it is 32 wins, 2 loses, 10 draws. In the combined Interzonal and knockout matches he had a streak of 20 consecutive wins against the world's top players.
And then in the Championship against Spassky he won 12.5-8.5 (+7-3=11) (and one of those loses was a forfeit when he skipped the game over some complaint about the playing conditions).
Nepo's performance in this Candidates was pretty dominating, but doesn't come anywhere near Fischer's level of dominance.