Anthony Joshuas career is a disappointment

I'd agree with that, I mean his best win was a 40 year old Wlad who made a direct deposit of his backside to the mat. The Ruiz loss literally derailed his train to the point even a rematch win couldn't patch the holes that loss exposed. You could literally see his lack of confidence when he entered the ring after those fights.

 

He looked ****ing great in the Usyk rematch. He'd have beaten anybody else that night; unfortunately he was in there with Usyk.

 

uh,,is that the fight he lost?

 

Not many heavyweights have a good second run after their first championship run.

And to put things into context:
Joshua beats Ruiz in the rematch.
The pandemic hits.
IBF throws out a shitty mandatory in Pulev.
WBO mandatory Usyk takes his belts from him.
Usyk wins the rematch.
Joshua has a mental breakdown, takes some time off, and then has a successful rebuilding campaign.

Unfortunately fights with Whyte and Wilder fell through and this makes Joshua´s little 4 fight win streak look rather meh. Dubois was his last chance at redemption and he blew it.
Also, I remember how vocal a lot of idiots here were about how Joshua was scared of Ruiz and would run from the rematch. Same **** with the Usyk rematch.

This forum truly despises Joshua, even tho he is one of the few Heavyweights who actually tried to make the biggest and best fights.

 

Yep. My point was that he'd fully got his mojo and confidence back for that fight. Then Usyk crushed it and AJ had an in-ring meltdown at the end.

 

He's won 9 Heavyweight world title fights which is more than the likes of Foreman, Marciano.

He's been paid millions upon millions for easy fights against the likes of Ngannou, Paul, which will set him up financially for 100 lifetimes.

If that's supposed to be disappointing career then give me a disappointing career any day of the week.

 

I disagree, Olympic gold medalist and title holder is great accomplishments! AJ had a bad loss against Ruiz and lost momentum/confidence from that but had some fun fights after that. AJ get a lot of unnecessary hate, I never understood why, he is horrible on the mic though…

 

Joshua has had a very good career, just not an ATG career.

The only real disappointment is the lack of fights with Fury and Wilder. But both those boxers avoided Joshua - he was always willing to fight them, so it wasn't his fault.

 

He achieved a lot in boxing and can be very happy with how his career has gone. He has been a solid top 3 HW for many years and should be respected for that. AJ, Fury and Wilder will be remembered fondly but Usyk is the only one from this era that will be remembered as elite.

 

I also had high hopes for him, but it's just a fact that many won't live up to hopes of becoming ATGs. I'm satisfied that he tried to make the fights that needed to be made, and that will have to do. Bummed that he didn't meet Fury in 2021 or even Wilder in 2019, but it was not on him.

It's more annoying to me that Mikey Garcia, whom I really liked as well, didn't try and make the fight with Loma. I can understand why he wanted to go big and try prime Spence, but it's truly a disappointment how his career panned out after deciding to go that route.

Joshua at least faced the best fighter of his generation. He came up short, but gave it all he had.

 

Both those guys avoided every live body they could.

 

The best analogy for Joshua's career is that of Oscar De La Hoya's. Gold medalist, huge fanbase and financial backing, great series of wins. One defeat, in which he wasn't the same again. Obviously Oscar was the better fighter and had better achievements. But I have always thought that there are plenty of similarities between both.

 

AJ's career overall has been underwhelming for a fighter that had the physical attributes to become a great. Very hard puncher but lacked the durability and ring IQ to be better. Still I think he did enough to at least retain a HOF career even though he's far from being considered an ATG HW.

 

I'm a bit disappointed about some of his fights, but not the career overall.

I think that his fight vs Paul was a bit of a farce, and AJ clearly could have KO'd Paul earlier if he wanted to. It's a money-grab fight which usually happens when boxer is done at the top-level.

Still he had faced many top-level opponents and scored some big wins.

Fair number of his fights were very exciting back-and-forth actions.