If Usyk goes in with the mentality of "I can outbox AJ and the British judges will be fair and give me the win" then he will be too cautious and probably not KO AJ, making the "loss" extremely likely. If Usyk goes in the with mentality of "The British judges are going to rob me whatever I do, so I have to KO the chinny, easily gassed, bodybuilding coward" then he increases his own chances of being KO'd but also exponentially increases his chances of victory.
Of course it won't. Marcus McDonnell and Howard Foster will be refereeing and judging, plus a couple of other shills no doubt. Usyk will need the KO.
The trouble Usyk is going to have is he could control the fight, pepper Joshua with shots for the entire round but if Joshua throws a left hook and lands even a glancing blow the crowd will go wild and the judges will probably give the round to Joshua. Happened when he fought Bellew. Usyk dominated that fight but was behind on the score cards.
He'll be knocking on the door of 35 in September and he's a big cruiser/small heavy, making him depreciate faster. He's also had 350 or so amateur fights which adds a lot of wear and tear. And his style is highly dependent on speed and reflexes; he doesn't have size, strength or power to fall back on. He's lucky he seems to be getting the AJ fight next because a 12 round fight with the juggernaut would have added a lot of wear and tear and aged him out more even if he'd won and God knows when Fury-AJ would have actually been concluded.
Granted but Usyk is hardly your 'average body'. He's a world class athlete who's looked after himself, kept flexible and fit for his entire career. Joshua is 32 this year, it's not an enormous gap between them in age. Usyk is far more adaptable and dangerous than Ruiz. Ruiz losing the fight was partly his own fault anyway. Had he come in fit and focussed who knows what would've happened. This won't happen with Usyk as he has a totally different mentality. You haven't seen the future, you're just a poster on boxing24forum. AJ is the favourite of course, I think AJ KO/TKO is most likely outcome. I think this is his hardest fight since Klitschko though.
My calculations deduce that there is an 88% chance Aj wins a controversial decision with half the forum thinking Aj did outlanded Usyk and did enough to win while the other half claiming Usyk was robbed.
Could easily happen, I wouldn't say an 88% chance though. I don't see a way Joshua wins on points unless it's controversial. Usyk is too clever and adaptable. I don't think Joshua is a good enough pure boxer to beat Usyk fairly on points.
AJ would have almost pitched a shut out in the first fight as well had he maintained distance with a jab. There was no great improvement; an 8 lbs lighter AJ just followed a run, jab and hold strategy against an untrained version of fat Andy who was 30 lbs heavier than the one who didn't have the footspeed, height or reach to beat stubby Parker. Ruiz is a borderline-journeyman as you've said and may be the most limited of any top 30 heavyweight, so adjusting to him when you have AJ's physical traits is relatively easy. It's a totally different kettle of fish when it's an elite athlete and world champion with many physical, technical and mental advantages over you. Coming off a second KO defeat in his last four fights to face Usyk in a rematch is also a lot more difficult than coming off one to face fat Andy.
Just imagine if Usyk could win this fight, HE would be really really SPECIAL, why ? He won every single belt in enemies territory one by one, and now wins 3 at the same time, in two divisons. WOW, just WOW.
Joshua will have that bald headed ref from the Takam fight in this one. His dart player mate I like to call him. A flurry of air punches is on the cards in the 11th round for a wave off standing stoppage. Poor Usyk.
At the end of the day, **** the judges and **** the belts. The fans will now who the best really is, the boxing world will. Most of us know Fury beat Wilder first fight out. If you know it and the boxing world knows it, that's what counts.
No reason to believe it will if the past is anything to go by. AJ hasn't had any dodgy judging scoring or refs yet (except a premature Takam stoppage although Takam was about to be dropped) It isn't like Canelo, Spence or Fury.
What matters more, IMHO, is what Usyk believes - if he thinks the cards are irredeemably stacked against him and goes hunting for KO then he gets stopped. For me, the only way Usyk wins this is if he believes he can win on the cards and outclasses AJ. I think if it's a clear UD then he'll get the win. I don't see it being be a complete robbery - yes champions usually get close rounds go their way, so you expect a certain level of bias on the cards as a matter of course, but I don't think we'll see much more than that.
