I'm so glad that AJ...

The men that you listed, all lost to men who were legitimate top ten opponents, however long the odds might have been.

This one is going to be very hard to rationalize retrospectively!

 

Ruiz Jr. was 32-1 and the 1 defeat was a very much disputed points loss to Joseph Parker, so it's not as if he was proven to be a "lower level" fighter. He's arguably never lost as a pro. He was regarded as quite legit by people who know boxing.

Ratings are flawed. The lower half of the top ten are often interchangable with a dozen others who didn't make the list. It's not as if being #10 on a list makes a fighter a separate class of fighter and better than someone who didn't make the list.
I said all along he was better than Jarrell Miller, and more proven even, yet Miller was being held up as legit as a "top ten" contender.

 

Lewis-McCall is almost a carbon copy, I think except McCall was even more of a fringe contender than Ruiz.

That said the McCall fiasco is more easily explained away as an anomaly as Lennox hadn't appeared chinny or particularly vulnerable prior to the 1994 upset whereas AJ has had more than a few scary moments in his brief career already.

I'm not sure there's a Manny Steward who can fix AJ's issues out there at present or if there is as much quality raw material there to develop that Lewis possessed.

 

You know nothing. Typical trash talking casual. Take your ball and go home....casual

 

OK, that might bear a look.

I am looking at it as a combination of the quality of the opponent, and when it happened.

I don't think that Lewis or Wlad were seen as being the best int eh world, when they lost to McCall and Purity respectively.

 

You do not need to sell me the idea that Ruiz was better than people thought!

 

I think that AJs loss will
1) help him improve.
2) prove to everyone that old legends above 6 foot can still destroy these modern day dinosaurs

 

I agree.
Joshua was looking to get his breath back. He didn't deliberately quit but the referee made the right call. He wasn't fit to continue.

 

Ruiz fought an excellent fight. He was not in shape, had to conserve himself, but knew to catch Joshua when he opened up. Took ring centre and the anxiety of Not being in command absolutely exhausted Joshua. AJ never worked out he was getting caught each time he committed himself.


Will people continue to make Foreman vs Frazier comparisons with slugger vs swarmer anymore?

We might just have seen Liston vs Marciano here.

 

Actually he looked bad at the prefight instructions. So often with that 2 minute window we often see a guy that just does not have that winner look about him. And Joshua sure not look like his comfy self during that time.

The other factor not mentioned is just how hard it is to be the heavyweight road warrior. Lots of losses in those and we see guys show up stale all the time. This was another example of that.

Now the big factor is how much pull Matchroom has. If Eddie can keep all those titles for the rematch. I doubt it. I think we see some crap from the IBF immediately for a defense they approve of. Might see the same thing with the WBA and the WBO.

So I think 1 to 2 titles are stripped before the rematch. This is the crap we the fans have had to put up with sometimes when unified champs get beat.

 

The sight of Joshua on the canvas with a podgy Ruiz standing over him will take a monumental effort to erase from people's memories. This is quite frankly an embarrassment.

 

Something wasn't right with AJ preparations for this fight. This will all come out in the aftermath to this fight. This fight strategy of AJ reminds me of when Morrison tried to ambush Bentt and was trying for quick ko trying to impress his hometowns fans defending his WBO Title . Even though this wasn't hometown AJ tried too hard for quick ko to impress USA fans on his USA debut with disastrous results like Morrison fight.

 

This. In hindsight all the warning signs were there for AJ being a KO waiting to happen.

The SHW's have been dominating not because their opponents are too small but because their fundamentals are generally so average that they don't know how to deal with SHW's with decent skill, the SHW are equally as lacking in skill but they've just been trumping the smaller guys because they're bigger.
As Ruiz showed last night all it takes is good timing, punching technique, judge of distance, some heart and you can beat these lumbering giants, the old masters like Louis, Marciano, Moore, Charles, Walcott who many still laughably believe were too small had those qualities and then some.