Does Anthony Joshua have the best resume of any active heavyweight?

Not a Joshua fan as such...

But you're not wrong that prime Wlad would've destroyed him - not saying all that much, a prime Wlad would've destroyed Fury too...

If Wlad had fought his whole career at his prime he'd have retired unbeaten, but that's not how life works!

Prime Pov probably would've beaten both, too... This really is a weak era, Fury and Joshua included - and the drop off the cliff beneath them is significant.

 

Honestly I think if Joshua would fight Wladimir Klitscko’s opponents in the exact same order the results would not have been that different.

 

"Joshua has more depth"

Even this is a myth. Barring Wlad, Joshua's better opponents (unless one counts Breazeale and Helenius, both of which Wilder KO'd in 1) are all relatively short and weren't prolific punchers:

Helenius aside, why has Joshua been matched exclusively against short non-punchers post-Wlad?

Takam (no knockdowns or stoppage wins against his eleven best opponents)

Parker (no stoppage wins against his eleven best opponents)

Povetkin (only Price got knocked down/stopped over a six fight stretch despite Povetkin being a pressure fighter)

Ruiz x2 (went the distance with a litany of journeymen despite being a pressure fighter)

Pulev (best stoppage wins were 8+ years prior in 11 rounds against Ustinov and Dimitrenko via a jab)

Usyk x2 (didn’t drop or stop Glowacki, Briedis, Gassiev or Chisora)

Franklin (part time factory worker, somehow went the 10 round distance with uber glass chinned journeyman Sour)



Wlad and Wilder x3 were 6'5+, athletic KO artists, long-reigning champions, in their backyards

Wallin's a tall, durable, determined southpaw who can box, ducked by Whyte 10 days out

Cunningham was an athletic durable 2x cruiserweight titlist, No.1 ranked at one point and ducked by Haye

Ngannou's a 272 lbs iron-chinned behemoth with big power and no footage to study

Whyte is Joshua's 3rd best win, gave him a better fight than anyone he beat barring Wlad and Povetkin

Chisora (2011-2014) is arguably the best win on the records of Vitali and Haye, gave Usyk his 3rd most competitive fight


"Also Joshua has a bad upset loss vs Ruiz but that's part of taking on strong competition"

Ruiz lost to Parker, who lost to Whyte. Chisora-level.

 

"But alas it's been over two years since Joshua last held the titles, and Fury (and Usyk to a lesser extent) have done next to nothing to strengthen their resumes."

In that time Fury's beaten Wilder 3 (top 2 ranked excluding Fury), Whyte (WBC mandatory, top 4 ranked excluding Fury), Chisora 3 (doesn't count for much/anything admittedly) and Ngannou (win could age very well), while Wallin has become a Ring top 10 contender.

 

I don't know. Wlad showed a lot of mental toughness to overcome the three losses (one to a journeyman, two to fringe contenders) to become a dominant champion. If/when Joshua's career went into a tailspin, would he have found a way to stabilise? Wlad's grappling also meant that he minimised risk and wear which may have greatly extended his reign, Joshua hasn't exhibited those skills.

 

No way

 

"Prime Pov probably would've beaten both"

Based on prime Pov's back and forth 10 round war with gatekeeper Takam, one of his absolute best wins. Or his 50-50 12 rounder with cruiser Huck, who Cunningham and Glowacki KO'd. Or his back and forth decision wins against sub-6' fat cruisers Chagaev and Chambers. Or allowing Wlad to molest him and win 12-0...

Povetkin was a bit better than Chisora but if you only watched their fights against their mutual opponents (Takam, Price, Whyte) and the Klitschkos you might think otherwise.

 

To be fair there werent many punchers in the division for Joshua to face at the time.

 

That’s true but the book on Joshua isn’t closed yet. Wladimir Klitschko had his vulnerable period as well. Especially the time from the Corrie Sanders loss to the first Samuel Peters win.

If Joshua would have gotten trained by Emanual Steward I think he would be a better fighter now.

To his credit Wladimir Klitschko did have a very long reign and a lot of fights. That might be a bit much to ask from Joshua.

Still though I think the Top 10 and definitely the Top 5 fighters now are better then during the Klitschko era. Especially if you consider that Wladimir Klitscko never would fight Vitali Klitschko and he didn’t fight Lennox Lewis.

 

Wilder 3: Dead Rubber Arbitration was the direct cause of Joshua v Usyk 1 being made, with the two fights happening a fortnight of each other.

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The lot of them have crap resumes, because the Top 6 or 7 guys have no more then 1 of the other Top 7 on there Resume, they have simply refused to fight one another.

 

I hate this argument so much - it's no wonder we can't get the best fighting the best these days, because of this perception that a loss to elites of the division do irreparable harm to the brand / resume etc.

Since Floyd & Calzaghe (to a lesser extent) this idea of the 0 and avoiding losses is one of the things killing boxing IMO.

Losing twice to probably the best fighter of his generation north of cruiser, elevates Joshua's resume IMO, because he took on the challenge and fought the best twice - sure he came up short, but look at how much trouble it's taking Fury to get in the ring with the same dude?

Look at some others - Canelo's loss to Mayweather doesn't blemish is resume over much, it also elevates it and losing probably lit such a fire under him. The Four Kings all have losses to each other - and that is to be expected with elite level talents who dare to be great.

Or put this another way - Joshua, Fury & Wilder's resumes would all be better if they had all fought each other & Usyk - even if that meant taking an L

 

Yeah but the topic is does Joshua have the best resume of the active Heavyweights?

In comparison how does Joshua losing twice to Usyk and once to Ruiz make his resume better the Usyk’s resume who beat him twice? Or Fury’s resume who did beat Wilder twice and one draw. And they got 0 losses. How is Joshua’s resume better compared to them?

 

The manner of the loss is definitely important, too... Joshua boxed the best pure boxer in the division and, whilst clearly beaten, wasn't unimpressive either.

It's certainly a less damaging loss than getting blown out in a one sided demolition job (Wilder in the second Fury fight), beaten comfortably by a fat and unfit fighter at nowhere near their best (Wilder in Fury 3) or lucky to scrape a draw against a ring rusty and even less fit fighter (Wilder in Fury 1)... The only credit Wilder got from those fights was for his heart in the ring.

Relative levels of opponent matter, but if you call Fury and Usyk equals for the sake of argument (generous to Fury as I think that is), these losses count completely differently for Wilder and AJ...