You had a multitude of heavyweights put Wlad down for good when he was much younger but Aj wasn't able to finish him off after launching numerous assaults against a MUCH older Wlad. He finished him off but Wlad wasn't counted out. He stopped Wlad on his feet. Anthony Joshua was smacking Dominic Breazeale around the ring and it took him 7 rounds to take him out, then Wilder gets in the ring with Breazeale and one shots him. Joshua got a gift stoppage against Carlos Takkam but Chisora knocked him clean out. Joshua beats parker in a 12 round UD and then Whyte puts him on his ass This is just objective observation, not saying Aj cant punch hard because he definitely does and he posseses enough power to wipe out any top 10. But he doesn't posses any extraordinary power like Wlad or Wilder. Or even really notable power tbh, its seems like he can throw decent powered affective combinations that increases damage output on his opponents quickly
Well Wlad was much more offense minded when he was younger and had worse defense. After training with Steward he rarely got dropped for a long period of time and was very careful. Brewster was a super offensive fighter constantly pressing forward and willing to take shots to land 1. Against Puritty, Wlad blew his load trying too hard to stop him and was gassed. It wasn't about Purrity being some devastating hitter. Wlad made an amateur mistake. Sanders had blazing hand speed and used a southpaw stance. Very few people actually had Wlad down for the 10 count. This is flawed abc logic. Sometimes common opponents do better sometimes worse. Wilder definitely hits harder than Joshua but no way in hell does Chisora he has very few world class stoppages. Chisora also caught takam with a sneaky hook. Joshua threw mostly obvious straight punches and gave away his intentions with his big shoulders. Chisora did a lot of infighting and set up his shots. I do agree the Joshua stoppage was bs and they just wanted to keep up his stoppage streak. He's a heavy handed clubber and gets a lot of mass and muscle into his shots. His power comes from his great textbook European form and fundamentals. He doesn't have that fast twitch explosive dynamite of Wlad, Wilder, Tyson, etc. He bludgeons you.
Joshua staggers his opponents often with one shot. Dorian Darch said when AJ landed on him he was out of it and buzzed badly and he’s the hardest hitters he’s been in with. Not got destructive one punch KO power but he bangs very hard and then finishes you with combos. And he’s KO’d 22 of his 24 opponents doing this, and some of them were very durable tough men like Povetkin, Johnson, Breazeale, Whyte, Pulev etc.
You could make this case for almost any fighter. Does Kownacki hit harder than wilder because he stopped washington and spilka quicker? Joshua hits plenty hard, hes become a bit more conservative as hes matured as a fighter, sort of like Wlad did.
Wlad was able to get young prime pulev out of there in passion AJ threw everything and a kitchen sink , but old pulev was still standing there after 8. Overrated power and overrated fighter.
Lol give it a rest, it took Wlad a lot of flush shots to finally get him out of there. Those left hooks he landed keep most fighters down. 88% KO ratio and against top opponents. Enough said.
He's pretty good at punching as long as they aren't coming back near his whiskers. Old Pulev just didn't have offense to panic him.
If your still able to consistently stop your opponents at a high level it really doesn’t matter. I can make a pretty long list of guys who hit harder than Mike Tyson, but it wouldn’t even matter since Mike was able to get ko’s at any level.
I've been saying this forever, AJ isn't a monster puncher, he is a decent puncher, nothing special. When you actually start really looking at AJ's resume, there are holes to be picked.
Joshua is a good puncher, not a great one. He has a bunch of knockouts and seems to hurt quite a few guys with individual punches, though we are not talking about stellar opposition here, but he has almost no one-punch knockouts in his entire career.