Did Joshua's management target older 'Name' fighters who had lost a step?

Avoided in form Zhang and Joe Joyce too he wanted nothing to do with them

 

Considering that Fury didn't fight anyone top shelf except Wlad and Wilder, i am not sure if we can accuse Joshua of avoiding Fury. Joshua fought Parker and even an older Povetkin who are at least as good as Wilder.

My opinion: Neither Fury nor Joshua were too keen on fighting each other. They both knew they could make a lot of money fighting other guys at lower risk. They wanted to delay fighting each other aka Mayweather-Pacquaio in order to maximize the revenue for when they did eventually fight each other years down the road. Little did they knew that a Ukranian farmer was plotting his takeover of the heavyweight division.

 

He fought whoever was in front of him, simple. People seem to have a real problem with the guy. Ok, maybe he is an extreme opportunist?
Or maybe it is dam smart? He has a stacked resume, win or lose and has earned a truck load of cash, Gold medal, x2 time unified champ.
When all is said and done he has had a great career.

 

When Zhang was one of the options for AJ in the late 2022 people were saying he was cherry picking, lol. If he took the fight and beat him, you guys would say he's another old man he beat xD

 

Well, considering that AJ actually signed the contract to fight Fury in 2021, it takes a level of straight delusion or simple stupidity or blind hatred, to say he avoided him, lol.

 

Most of those older fighters were considered top 5-10 when he fought them, its not like he was clearly avoiding a top 10 stacked with young prime talent to fight geriatrics instead.

Parker, Whyte, Ruiz and Martin were young men too.

 

Dude it only takes 2 mins to look at his record and form your own opinion?!

 

I would say for sure
It’s boxing management 101.

 

OK, so who were these old men that AJ beat?

Klitschko in April 2017 and Povetkin in September 2018. Now, tell me who were the better guys at that time who AJ could fight?

See, there are none. Yes, these were "old men" but still best available opponents. Wlad was the best active heavywight in the world and Povetkin was the number 1 challenger barring Wilder who didn't want to fight AJ.

 

I wouldn't say that. They were in the top 10, but the heavyweight division was (still is) just absolutely horrendous. So despite most being the best there was to offer, they were just rubbish.

 

Nobody is going to respect a fighter h2h if this fighter has no heart at all.

 

Klitchco was his Biggest Win imo & he was 41.
If he had faced him any earlier = KO for Klit
Again imo.
Francis Ngannou
Alexander Povetkin
Carlos Takam
Eric Molina
To name a few… all past prime at the time they fought AJ.

Please don’t get it wrong - I give AJ his flowers . One of my favorite fighters.
As he is a warrior
But let’s not pretend he wasn’t carefully moved especially early on as most boxing managers wisely do this.
that was the main point of my original post.

 

You didn't answer my question tho. How is fighting the best available guys "carefully moving"? As you agree, Wlad was the best challenge around in April 2017 and Povetkin was the best challenge around in September 2018, right?