Sure why not all he has to do is blast out the Gypsy Pudding who seems scared of anything with a pulse nowadays.
I always felt he had a decent shot against Fury. If Fury is ducking Usyk, he has a chance at doing it.
Fury, Usyk and Wilder are all on the way out. Fury is still 34 but his legs are gone. Once Usyk vacates, it will be a miracle if Joshua can´t pick up another belt. Looking at the top 5 of each ABC, I reckon Joshua could beat most of them.
Great stuff as usual, Rummy. I agree with nearly everything you said, but PLEASE stop referring to Fury as a "lineal" anything. That ship sailed long ago. Yes, he won last weekend which is really all that counts. However, he took at least a half dozen hard straight right hands that if they had been delivered by Wilder, he would have gone night-night. No, he shouldn't retire because he certainly can make more money, for himself and maybe more importantly for Eddie Hearn, who needs some funds to buy a damn razor blade; that beard is getting grey and ugly. AJ-Fury would be a huge moneymaker, but would Fury get off his ass and make that fight? Who knows? Personally I'm not interested in AJ-Whyte which is the match many people are talking about. If Usyk gets stripped by one of the Alphabet boys AJ would certainly have a chance against the Dubois, Joyces, Hergovic's of the world.
Not from Fury and clearly not Usyk. If both retire and Joyce gets them then no because he won't beat Joyce either..........I'd favor Joshua (currently) against mostly everyone else. Once the belts fracture again (and they will eventually), it's possible.
I don’t see AJ beating fury or usyk so unless one of those belts gets let go anytime soon then no. I have a bad feeling from the way AJ fought against Franklin that his chin is gone and he has to be careful so he can get one last big payday against fury/wilder or whyte and then retire and probably try to be the next Eddie Hearn
I'll readily admit, the other night during the fight I was one of the guys kinda being hard on AJ. To me it looked like he had a deer in headlights look around the fourth round or so, but not long after that he seemed to settle into his groove and was never in any real danger. He never really "went for it," so to speak, but does that mean he's scared and shot now? Sure, it could, but now that I've had some time to ruminate on it, I think it's equally likely he just coasted to a points win because of what this fight meant. A knockout would have been great, but if he got careless and tagged like his first fight with Ruiz, that would have made this a poor confidence boosting fight, even if it was just a flash knockdown and he had managed to get up from the canvas to win. And hell, after getting outboxed badly in back to back fights, maybe a wide decision win is just what the guy needed for his confidence. I wanna see him do some more fights before I say for sure and his body language at some moments gave me pause, but right now I'm leaning toward him being extra cautious just because it was his big comeback fight. I could absolutely see him holding a belt again. If Usyk decided tomorrow that he was done with boxing and dropped all of the belts, I think AJ could easily beat Dubois and Hrgovic, and I also lean toward him in a fight with Joyce right now; I reserve the right to change my mind on that depending on their next performances though If Fury did the same he'd likely fight Wilder, who I do see AJ beating still. As for if AJ should retire just yet, I personally don't think so, and he certainly shouldn't just because of one seemingly lackluster performance which still produced a winning effort. There are still good and winnable fights out there for him, he's not quite old yet and he hasn't taken a ton of physical damage. Ultimately it's up to him, but if he did go ahead and retire I think it would be a shame, and it would leave a lot of interesting questions unanswered.
His confidence seemed all gone on Saturday. The one possibility I see against Fury is if being a big underdog would free him of overthinking. It's far from guaranteed, of course, but sometimes being an underdog is a god send for someone with confidence issues. Because physically I believe he has the tools to not be far from 50-50 with anyone today not called Usyk. And maybe the Fury camp trying to salvage something out of the wreck Fury's made of his reputation will finally see a fight with AJ happening. But for AJ to be competitive in that one, he need to mentally be in a very different state than he was on Saturday.
I watched Joyce vs. Parker last night. AJ would look ok in the early rounds against him, but it's only a matter of time before he both tires out and starts eating hooks from Joyce.