AJ vs Prenga in July

20-0, 20 KO’s

there is no blueprint

 

Handily winning? He got chinned in the third round Ruiz looked okay the first two rounds.

 

AJ won the first 2 and got a KD in the 3rd but then it all went very wrong.
I haven’t watched the fight in years but from memory he was in control up until that point.

 

He was in control indeed.
But that fight changed him forever,his mental make up was never th same.

 

There's a difference between losing rounds and being in trouble. Round 3 was a bit of a flash knockdown for Ruiz which seemed to wake him up if nothing else.

The 2nd fight was an embarrassment, AJ running away for 12 rounds while Ruiz didn't have the gas tank to chase him. Should have been a trilogy Ruiz might have trained properly for, but we knew that would never happen.

 

His recovery versus Klitschko was incredible. We need full roid AJ back.

 

At 36 years old as a very experienced boxer at the highest level, not sure what the point of this fight is for his career.

I can see for AJ its another pay day for him and his hangers on. Is this just a fight to keep his record active, and possibly lead to a big money fight vs Fury? He wants to appear as still being an active boxer with a serious career, even though his last fight was a staged exhibition fight vs a Jake Paul?

 

This is my memory of the fight too

AJ was in full control then boom all went wrong

 

I was there live & since watched it back. Thought Ruiz certainly wasn’t overawed the first 2 although you’d probably edge the rounds to AJ. Got greedy after his knockdown in the third and then it was absolute mayhem for the next 20 mins. Think I spent the entirety of it with the my mouth wide open in disbelief. What a night.

 

Yeah. Exactly right.

He got greedy and paid a big price.

 

Don’t think he was ever the same since the Klitschko fight tbh.

 

Never really bought into these arguments as they seem unsubstantiated.

What was he like before the Klitschko match? He was knocking over absolute stiffs, some of whom came to lie down (Martin, Molina). He barely scraped past Klitschko who had next to no stamina.

Joshua will always look good against rubbish opponents. He'd have been in wars with the likes of Danny Williams, Julius Francis, and Gary Mason.

 

Klitschko had no stamina, lunging in with embarrassingly telegraphed left hooks. Joshua was allowed to recover. Full natty Joshua has never left us. He's about 40lbs pumped up and that's why his stamina has always been really poor because he's carrying a lot of hypertrophy.

 

I've never understood the logic for Joey 11 being AJ's best win.

For me, it is clearly 41 Wlad: he was Joshua's hardest ever win by far, and the most accomplished fighter Joshua ever beat by far.

After Wlad, it is clearly 39 Povetkin, one of Wlad's best and most controversial victims. Povetkin and Parker have three other mutual opponents: Takam, Hughie, Whyte

Povetkin outperformed Parker against all of them, two of which he beat after Joshua KO'd him! And in the case of Whyte, Parker lost, whereas a near 41 year old Povetkin killed Whyte with one punch in round 5.

Joshua's third best win is probably Whyte, who beat Parker and did better against their mutual opponent Chisora.

Yes Parker went 12 rounds with Joshua and none of the others did but so did 284bs Ruiz, so did Franklin. They survived in large part because they posed less threat to Joshua than Wlad, Povetkin and Whyte, who all hurt him more.

 

The pinnacle of the AJ fandom’s contradictions is the revisionist critique of Fury’s Wilder wins but not a peep out of them about how poorly the Parker win aged.

Beat by whyte just a few months later, then became new & improved after leaving Kevin Barry but was still soundly beaten by Joyce & then stopped by euro level wardley.