AJ will never fight Wilder or Fury

Wilder ducked - it always looked like it was likely to never happen because of that.

Fury... Probably could've happened but again, Fury wasn't the easiest to persuade to get in the ring sometimes - it took ages to get him to find the stones to fight Usyk.


It's a shame these fights didn't happen - especially with Fury as they'd likely have been pretty evenly matched, where Wilder was always likely to get blown out if it happened (hence the ducking).

 

I blame Wilder and Fury.

 

This is a myth. Joshua and Fury fought Usyk x2, Wlad, Whyte, Wallin, Kevin and Ngannou but Fury fought Wilder x3 in America, which was always seen by Hearn and Joshua as a massively dangerous fight. Indeed, undefeated Joshua got KO'd by short, slow footed, light punching Ruiz in America and didn't return until he fought Jake Paul 6.5 years later.

 

Hearn was always trying to find the "right time" from a commercial and risk-reward point of view but Joshua kept on losing and needing a "rebuild". He lost to Ruiz in the biggest HW upset since Tyson-Douglas, has a rematch clause with Ruiz, beats 39 Pulev, loses two fights to Usyk, has a four fight rebuild against lesser opponents, then gets starched by Dubois, takes 15 months off, fights a Youtuber, gets in a fatal car crash a week later.

 

AJ would swap his record with Fury's in an instant. Fury's got the bigger wins and half the losses, with no KO losses and no "biggest upset of all time" losses. Pretty much every active HW boxer would prefer Fury's record.

 

This actually connects to your agenda of 'not buying hype jobs'. It's the same thing, just several levels higher.

Since the reason for guys like fury and wilder not to take risks in even matchups is that an even matchup makes for a good fight, but kills the hype a bit. If you're only fighting guys a level or two below, the hype stays strong, because people extrapolate these performances of their personal favorites or national peers to what they would do against guys on their own level or higher.

That's why mayweather and pacquiao faced off so late and it became a bit of a blueprint. Also I feel that both bivol and beterbiev lost a bit of their unbeatable reputation by fighting each other. It's ridiculous and a big part of how fans are responsible for how matchmaking is done.

And for the record, 'AJ' was also guided veery carefully by eddie hearn.

 

Ironically if not for Wilder , Fury and Joshua would have already fought. AJ signed to fight Fury and Fury wanted the fight but was obligated (legally)to fight Wilder a third time. A shame but not all bad as I did enjoy that k.o in their third bout!

 

What a load of crap. Joshua has fought the bigger names plus taken on mandatories something Fury has been avoiding ,plus Fury admitted to faking an injury to avoid getting smashed by a pissed of wlad in a rematch. Fury is overrated by a mile . But of course there will always be hillbillys out there defending him

 

A Lewis-Bowe hypothetical, except that all three Of Wilder, Fury, and Joshua stunk.

 

Well, Wilder ducked him when they were both champions and admitted to it. He also wet the bed against Parker after they signed to fight in 2023. AJ's fight with Fury in 2021 was also derailed by Wilder and his arbitration. AJ tried to fight both of them for years, signed at one point, but it wasn't his fault the fights didn't materialize. Shame really.

 

This up to a point...

With Wilder, yes, absolutely.

With Fury, and to a lesser extent Joshua... In a way, but having bigger achievements does fundamentally prove much more - following it with mediocre opponents can sometimes build hype, but not if they're too crap (see Kabayel).

Up to a point, yes, although his resume doesn't have nearly as many dips to really low quality opponents...

Picking Klitscho after a little while off and when he'd looked like the fire was going out against Fury?
Careful guidance, even if it turned out that he had more fire left than they probably expected.

Targeting Parker, as a relatively green champion? Good timing and good management - but again, he still had to get the job done, and they obviously backed him enough to think it was worth going for.

The same clearly couldn't have been said for the other champ of the moment, who kept on fighting journeymen and certainly wasn't guided towards fighting these guys.

Joshua, for all his flaws, still built a solid resume - timing makes it look slightly better than it perhaps is, but it's still clearly beyond Fury's and ****ing miles beyond Wilder's.