British fans expected Joshua to do a number on a 41 year old Klitschko who won 3 rounds vs Fury 18 months before. It's only after both went life and death that you changed the narrative and tried to turn the exposure of the overrated Joshua to "the greatest heavyweight fight of the decade".
The British sports media and casual fanbase do tend to throw their weight behind a British 'golden boy'. That is by the by. I personally know of a number of more dedicated British boxing fans who fancied Klitschko quite strongly, based on Wladimir's experience/technique and the flaws (and inexperience) they perceived in Joshua. Some of them even thought he would avoid Wlad, that Hearn wouldn't take the risk so soon. For the record, I did expect Joshua to win, but not because I believed Wladimir to be washed up and incapable. I picked Joshua because I saw enough of a physical specimen in him to prevent Wladimir sapping him with superior strength/weight, enough of a skillset in him to imagine that he could hold his own in the boxing match and find ways set up his big shots, and because I favored his confidence over Wlad's long established tentative streak when it came to letting the money punches go. As it happened, Joshua got to Wlad early, which forced Wlad to find his own teeth, before Joshua got another wind, worked his way back into the fight and closed the show. I don't deny that the resistance Wlad offered made the fight more interesting/exciting than if he had succumbed to the first onslaught. What would be the point in denying that? Who is "you"? You're predicating the statement on the misapprehension that everybody (or everybody in Britain?) thought Joshua was infallible or invulnerable – few outside of the sport's casual fanbase actually thought that. I don't think Joshua was exposed for that matter. His stamina ebbs and his vulnerability to a clean shot on the button were no secret, we'd seen clear glimpses only a year before in his bout with Whyte. Klitschko represented a considerable step up in competition for a still relatively inexperienced fighter; Joshua received an accordingly big gut check, and he passed it. Darn near every time we got a really good heavyweight fight between 2004 and 2017, we'd hear talk about it being the best since Vitaly and Sanders slugged it out. So that was nothing new. Would you deny that Joshua-Klitschko was one of the best heavyweight bouts in a decade? Somewhere in the nub of that post, you're inadvertently implying that Wlad's ability to offer such a level of resistance is supportive of my contention that he was running on much more than just fumes. Hey, I agree. I should add that I've never had a loyalty to Anthony Joshua. I'm a Fury guy. If I've ever wished Joshua to 'come good', it is because I wanted Fury to have a significant contemporary rival by which to define himself rather than ending up like Wlad, i.e. King of a dead era. Despite the loss of his undefeated record, Joshua is still finding ways to add strings to his bow, so he will make a worthy rival if he stays on course between now and such time as he and Fury can get together. (Although I do very strongly favor Tyson for the win.)