Choose five Wlad-victims to beat prime Joshua

“Prime” meaning the version of Joshua who provides the hardest matchup for your choice, not necessarily “2015-2017 Joshua” or “pre-Ruiz Joshua”.

For example, although mentally damaged and scared to engage, the 237 lbs Ruiz 2 Joshua may well be the least beatable version of Joshua for a lumbering opponent like Wach, whereas the overconfident and extremely green 245 lbs 2015 Joshua could potentially blow his gas tank trying to overwhelm the enormous, titanium chinned Pole, or get caught with a devastating single punch as Hammer did.

*This hypothetical assumes home and A-side advantage for Joshua, as would be realistic

 

10 options is the forum limit unfortunately. I didn't include Brewster because he'd taken three horrific beatings in his previous five fights going into Wlad 2, he'd been dethroned by Liakhovich going into Wlad 2, his run of form in his final four fights post-Wlad 2 was poor and he offered little resistance to Wlad in the rematch.

I don't understand the Peter part. He lost to Wlad twice but in vastly more one-sided fashion in 2010 than in 2005.

 

I agree with at least 3/5 of your picks but I can't get the Ray Austin draw out of my head. I can't leave out Tony Thompson and there's even a case for DaVarryl Williamson, as a poor man's Wilder.

 

McCline's an interesting one because of his size (billed as 6'6, 82 inch reach, 263 lbs), decent chin (only punched to a stoppage in 10 rounds by Wlad from 1996-2009) and pretty good power (dropped Grant in seconds with one punch and stopped him, dropped Cole, dropped Briggs, stopped Shufford, stopped Boswell late, dropped Byrd, dropped Brock, dropped Peter 3x, dropped Abdusalamov in McCline's last fight). Probably an underrated pick.

 

Boring.

Funnily enough the fighter given the best chance by far of beating Wlad on that list at the time outside Wlad's disastrous 2003-2005 period was Haye, who blatantly ducked Fury:

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threa...ayes-duck-of-tyson-fury.710185/#post-22521706

 

I get you now. I didn't include Sanders and Brewster 1 because they were Wlad-conquerors rather than victims. And it would be a waste of a spot to include Sanders imo because he would be the 1st name on most lists and universally in the top 5.

 

"Chagaev is short, not a real HW, but way better than Ruiz. Chagaev TKO."

I don't see much evidence of that. He had way better amateur pedigree than Andy Ruiz sure but he was completely useless against Wlad and his best win was either a split decision over John Ruiz or his majority decision over Valuev. He lost to a relatively unroided Povetkin by a clear margin. Ruiz went 50-50 with Parker (who is better than the likes of Eddie Chambers, who would be 50-50 or better with Chagaev H2H), who beat Takam (who gave the more roided Povetkin a much closer fight than Chagaev while it lasted) and Hughie (who also gave Povetkin quite a bit of trouble) without much controversy, destroyed Dimitrenko (who gave Pulev and Chambers good fights several years prior), officially beat Chisora first time (who compares ok with Povetkin in the mutual opponent stakes). Ruiz is much more physically imposing than Chagaev, I think significantly more talented offensively and somehow a fair bit easier to underestimate.

I don't have ANY confidence in Pulev. He'd surely find a way to mess things up even if he were winning the jab battle early on. I should have also specified that this hypothetical assumes home advantage for Joshua. Pulev couldn't beat Chisora by a clear margin in London in their rematch. He also lost nearly every round to Joshua when they fought, if not every round, so it's not even a Povetkin situation where you could argue that at least he was going 50-50 over several rounds before he got KO'd. Nor is Pulev getting the KO realistically.