If Joshua destroyed Wilder in 2018, would he receive more credit than Fury did?

The AJ slurping around here would have become unbearable.

And yeah, I'd have him 3-1 over Wilder because Wilder simply is a bad boxer with one great trick. He probably would have gotten more credit because he was already riding a wave of hype.

Frankly I wouldn't mind seeing that timeline: AJ whoops Wilder then has to fight Fury for all the marbles. In my opinion a bouyant AJ would be more dangerous for Fury than Wilder, because AJ is a better boxer than Wilder with almost the same power.

 

"I'd have him 3-1 over Wilder"

Would you have 2018 Joshua a "3-1" favourite over Andy Ruiz or Dubois? To me, it doesn't fit the facts as we saw them.

 

Wilder's record going into a hypothetical Joshua fight:

40-0 (39 KO's), dropped once, best win undefeated Ortiz, 7 defences


Ruiz's record going into the actual Joshua fight:

32-1 (21 KO's), best win 26-6 Liakhovich, non-titlist, 0 defences


Dubois' record going into the actual Joshua fight:

21-2 (20 KO's), dropped six times, both losses via jab quitjob, best win undefeated Hrgovic, 0 defences

 

It would have been a case of:

"You'd have to say he's the greatest of all time, Koogz. I don't wanna hear about Mohammed Ali, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis. This boy's the best I've seen."

 

I think AJ has gotten worse over time. Seems to me he can't take punches anymore, no idea what happened to his chin. While nobody will mistake him for McCall, his chin used to be 'ok'.

I still think Wilder can't box very well, even though there's an argument to be made that he is improving skillswise.

Certainly back then I reckon AJ ought to have been handsomely favoured over Wilder. Although his hype certainly exceeded the actual product at the time.