Anthony Joshua was never a good boxer or a special talent in the sports.

Anthony Joshua was always more athlete than boxer.

He might be one of the greatest athletes boxing has ever seen but he isn't naturally gifted with boxing skills or a high boxing iq like Fury for example who isn't a naturally gifted athlete like AJ on the other side but as we all know HW boxing isn't a bodybuilding & physique competition.

Additionally we all saw that AJ is a much better hammer than a nail. He can take a good shot, sure. He can take punishment. But if things went south in the past he mentally checked out and literally just tried to survive (Ruiz 1, Usyk).

AJ's hype was built around a controversial gold medal at the Olympics and great potential to sell him as 'Everybody's darling' because of his appearance and physique.

I don't dislike him or anything but i think AJ fanboys are just blind if it comes to his skillset and legacy. He's not even close to an ATG or so.

Say what you want about Fury but AJ will always be remembered as the 'second guy' behind Fury in his era and if Usyk beats him in the rematch i think AJ will likely retire or take a cash out fight against Wilder (if Wilder isn't retired at that point).

However...AJ made the best out of his career. He made a **** load of money and i really respect that. He's a role model for a lot of young athletes who don't have the skills and talent but if you just work hard enough and use some attributes god has given to you ...you can make it to the top.

 

So when he got put down hard by Wlad how did he get up to win?

Also are we just going to ignore Fury ducking the Wlad rematch

 

Did you watch the fight? Wlad was absolutely gassed to ****ing hell. AJ won because Wlad gassed. And as i said above: AJ can take a good punch and can take some punishment too. Wlad just couldn't really follow up after the KD and gassed and AJ took advantage of it. If you want to defend AJ here please do it with a real argument. The Wlad fight is a pretty poor one.

 

That's not the argument. Things went south in that fight and AJ got up to win. He didn't mentally check out.

 

Dude. Are you ****ing stupid? Did you watch the fight? AJ got hammered in that round and survived. I said he can take punishment and he can take a good shot as well. Wlad gassed out and didn't do much after that. So things went south for a minute or so. After that Wlad was basically done. The definition of "things went south" is more like getting hammered for a few rounds and dominated. Not "getting knocked down and the other guy can barely stand upright afterwards because of being gassed"....get your facts straight pal. You're embarrassing yourself and trying to nitpick.

 

You also said Frank Sanchez beats Anthony Joshua. That tells me all I need to know about your bias against him and hatred towards him buddy.

 

The tl:dr version is “Average boxer with good physique makes himself a lot of money”.

 

That's not entirely correct sir. Please get your facts straight and do not spread Fake News. Thank you.

 

The only one nitpicking is you. If being knockdown hard by a puncher like Wlad isn't having to be face adversity and overcome it I don't know what is.

 

Dude...don't act like a total fool!

I never said he NEVER overcame any adversity in his career. Wlad dropped him hard, he got back up like he did against Ruiz a couple of times.

Ruiz was able to maintain the pressure and landed more and more hard shots until the ref stopped it and Joshua was done. Wlad just couldn't do it because he gassed out and could barely stand upright while Ruiz was just marching forward and throwing wild and hard hooks to AJ's head.

I'm not nitpicking, i'm mentioning FACTS.

 

What type of boxer Joshua is doesn't really matter.
That he was blatantly gifted his gold medal doesn't change that much about his professional career.
That he's an arrogant pr__k doesn't matter.
That when the smoke clears he's either 2nd, 3rd or 4th best doesn't matter that much either.

What does matter is that he has shown that he is a HW that had no issues to test himself against the best. No smart routes, no constant bum bashing and avoiding the competition who's style doesn't favor you. No dropping belts to get more favorable matchups. So, he lost.
And the downside that like a couple of others pranching about in the division, that he's probably not "natural".

At the end of the day he's a relatively positive addition to today's division.

 

Lol. What? He didn't fight anyone at all until he was like 30 years old?! I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about but well....

 

He was a just over 2 years pro when he fought the Whyte guy... after that is was all titlefights with the last 8 all top10 rated.
completely incomparable to other beltholders in the division post Wlad.

This is not even some "revelation" either. Everyone knows this.

 

I think everybody objective would agree.

But he stil will go down as one of the best of this era-which tells you a lot about this HW era.

 

Frank Sanchez beats Anthony Joshua, indeed.