Joshua Could've fought Wilder last year

Wait - was it Joshua who needed to "improve himself"? Do you need common sense to get that to sound right, looking at the outcome?

 

Is that the only way you can look at it? "He didn't fight Wilder, mustve felt he wasn't ready"? Could it be that Wilder hadn't got a notable win in years and you don't make a super fight with a boxer with a loosing record.

 

Weren't there talk of them fighting earlier also? Like in 2021 something when Wilder actually was kind of relevant? What happened that time?

You didn't build a super fight on beating Helenius ghost. For Joshua it was a keep busy fight, for Wilder it was his only win in (4?) years.

If you "don't see a problem in that" and come to the conclusion that Joshua ducked him you should stop drawing conclusions.

 

Why does it matter?

 

I'm going to dip my toe into this thread, just to add:

Wilder's team in the aftermath of the Parker fight, said ideally they would have liked another tune up before fighting Parker. Parker who was on a rebuild following his stoppage loss to Joyce.
Tune up > Parker
Tune up > Joshua
Parker > Joshua

What you wrote above was already the most sensible conclusion in 2023. What we learnt after the fact just reinforces it.

 

It doesn't matter because they were scheduled to fight anyway so what's the point of splitting hairs over 6 months or so ? again it's not Joshua's fault Wilder failed against Parker had Wilder won the fight would've already happened.

As for Whyte he kept having to jump through hoops in banana skin loseable fights, and despite winning his fights Whyte never got his shot at Wilder even though he was his mandatory for 2 years.....

You say Wilder wasn't afraid of him but yet he ducked Whyte for over 2 years.

 

It would be an interesting fight no question.

But lets face it, at this point in time, it would be the bronze medal fight lol

 

Ortiz got to fight for the WBC title. Both Ortiz and Whyte got offered the Joshua fight at various points, both fumbled it. Your talking absolute nonsense.

Ortiz has a poor resume because he lost every time he fought a decent fighter. Not because he never got opportunities.

Ortiz career in a nutshell:

Joshua - Ducked
Wilder x2 - Lost
Ruiz Jr - Lost
Jennings - Won
Martin - Won (just)

That’s not world level. And it’s not because he’s not been given opportunities, that’s 6 decent fights he’s been offered there.

 

Total BS, Ortiz was signed with Goldenboy who got him a WBA eliminator against Ustinov that would of made him mandatory in 2016. He declined the fight first time to force it to purse bids to try and get more money. So the fight went to purse bids and again Ortiz declined the fight this time citing fears that Ustinov was doping which considering his own doping issues in the future are shockingly hypocritical and clearly a BS excuse to duck Ustinov. He then paid Goldenboy $1 mill to buy out his contract with them because much like when he jumped ship from Matchroom he didn't like how Goldenboy were matching him up with fighters he deemed threats.

Luckily for Ortiz he found PBC a promotional outfit that is more than happy to pad records fighters by matching them with journeymen after journeymen for easy paydays. He even ran away from his own mandatory in Joshua choosing the easier Wilder, Ortiz literally ran away from tough match making 3 times during his career, he was never a boogeymen, he was the one ducking tough fights in Ustintov and Joshua.