Does anyone else feel like AJ is being severely underestimated?

Yes.

 

The problem I see with AJ is consistency. Let’s take a look at three different AJ’s...

1. The one who Beat Wlad
2. The one who lost to Ruiz
3. The one who beat Ruiz

The one who beat Wlad wasn’t quite the body builder Instagram endorsement model AJ became after that. The AJ of that fight, while a little green, had Olympic pedigree and wasn’t trying to knock out Wlad with a couple of punches.

The one who lost to Ruiz forgot his pedigree, ignored his reach advantage, got super aggressive going in for the knock out and got broken down and humiliated.

The one who came back against Ruiz fought a defensive minded boring tippy tap fight, causing many to speculate that he lost his edge.

The last version of AJ in most peoples minds is the rematch with Ruiz version... yes he beat Pulev throwing uppercuts like a street fighter 2 character, but Pulev was a forty year old man, Fury isn’t. This is where the hang up occurs due to the fact that if a timid AJ fights Fury the way he fought Ruiz in the rematch, he’s going to get obliterated.

This is where the disconnect of AJ’s skill set versus his chances against Fury come in.

His best chance is a hybrid combination of those three aspects of himself.

 

These same guys not giving AJ a snow balls chance in hell to win, will be the first to start spewing excuses. First of which will be Fury's inactivity.

 

I made a thread about it like 2-3 weeks ago.

I am not sure that the fight is even going to come off, anyway.

 

The fight needs a crowd they are just stalling until they are in a position where they can have a full stadium, I have no interest in watching that fight without a crowd I’d rather it didn’t happen at all

 

Yes

 

Are you planning to go? I'll just watch from the TV so I don't really care about the crowd.

 

No Iam not planning to go but it is necessary to get the best out of them and make it the spectacle it should be

 

I predict AJ late TKO. He's talked about his gameplan multiple times going into the Fury fight. Its going to be a breakdown job. I predict this because of the fact Aj is 4X better on the inside and at Mid-range than Wladimir was. Fury's defense is elite but when he's pressured on the ropes it can be summed up as slip and clinch. When Wallin put the pressure on Fury at select points in the fight and went to the body and sort of swarmed him on the ropes Fury's vulnerability was exposed to an extent. It's funny how im the only one who sees this. And it has nothing to do with Wallin being a southpaw because Fury himself went southpaw multiple times in the Wallin fight.

After those early rounds when Fury got a cut he ended up coming forward and battered Wallin to control the fight. Wallin didn't have the skill to hold his own against an agressive Fury. Aj does. And Aj would take advantage of Fury's sloppy offense. Aj will work the body and has the size to trouble Fury on the ropes unlike chisora, the mid range combos to touch Fury up unlike Klitschko and the strength to hold his own in the clinches unlike Wilder. People will be so suprised when they see how much trouble Fury has in this fight. I could be wrong and Aj gets destroyed in 6 rounds or looses a UD but from the way Fury's been talking lately i doubt it. I think he himself knows Aj is a far more dangerous threat than Wilder despite the fact that he's been saying the opposite.

The only thing that i question about Aj is his confidence to mix it up with Fury, because if he's still fighting his demons from the Ruiz loss that he clearly cant beat Fury and Fury wins by UD.

On a sidenote yes Aj is being underrated.

 

I think Fury will most likely win but he'll have to be on his game. I'd say something like 55-45 in Fury's favour would be about right. People claiming it will be a walkover for Fury are just kidding themselves and I think if Fury is thinking like that it will get him knocked out.

 

I’d agree he is being underestimated. Listen, the whole Ruiz saga was bad. He got sloppy and he got spilled. Then he fought tentatively and cautiously in a boring decision in the rematch. Both can be traced back to getting sloppy while trying to close out an opponent who wasn’t ready to go.

He’s clearly better than that.

Yes, some questions remain about how he might react when things get rough, and yes, Fury is the favorite, and rightfully so, but if Fury isn’t on his game, he could get slept himself. Joshua can punch as well as box, and if Wilder can get to him, AJ certainly can.

 

No, I don't think he is. I'd say everybody knows Joshua is dangerous, including Fury. Joshua has been well trained, has experience, has power, has 'help'' in all forms. Just because a lot of people/fighters are making Fury their pick it doesn't mean they think it's a lock in or a mismatch or something like that. It's also boxing and people know anything can happen on any given night. I actually think Fury probably also needs a KO or KD's to win.

Also, if Joshua had average HW power, it might be different. But he can turn a fight at any point, so it's going to be a nervous fight for all Fury fans, similar to the Wlad and Wilder ones.

 

People keep yammering about him being this stiff bum robot, yet are always fine with him being the favorite every fight.
Kinda hilarious really.

 

AJ is pretty good, I just think he's tailor made for Fury's classic outside-boxing style.

AJ: Slow movement, predictable, very generic, and can't adjust on the fly. He has power, but not single-punch-KO power, meaning it's possible to take some bad hits from him and escape -- unlike with Wilder's instant KOs. Joshua beats everyone mostly by having a polished but standard boxing skillset, plus just being bigger, stronger, and having greater range than everyone else. For the first time, he'll lose most of those advantages.

Wilder was completely different and I thought Wilder pretty much hard-countered Fury's style. Much to Fury's credit, he was able to completely switch styles to overcome Wilder, and I think Fury really had no choice except to swap styles: if Fury tried his traditional jab-and-move style in the rematch, he probably would have had at least a 50:50 chance of getting KTFO.

Now, if Fury tries the come-forward style -- the style he used to beat Wilder -- against AJ, then there's a good chance AJ will KO him. I just doubt Fury will do that.