What cost Wlad last night

Watching it with my boys and a friend we all remarked about how Joshua was mixing up his attack whereas Wlad was exclusively head hunting.I think Wlad was too arm weary to finish of Joshua when he went into Bruno mode, just a flurry hitting anything might have prompted the referee to step in.Joshua's youth kicked in and he weathered the crisis.

 

I think he was injured going in but not 100 percent sure. Hes been dragging that leg ever sin ce mcguigan took over. I m not sure if he was injured or hes struggling with mcguigans new style. What puzzles me is mcguigan made no mention of it in the corner whatsoever you,d also think they,d come prepared. No strapping to start with even when it did go the strapping was makeshift at best. The public workout their hitting them pads with full bloodied shots...its a bit risky if theres a bit of an injury.

I d like to think he was...because if not hes not doing anything against the big guys. Bellew was tipped to get smashed in the first round...haye was going on about rematches before the fight as if he knew that was his level. He had to be dealing with bellew convincingly. Needs to forget about bellew now put it down to experience and see if theres a path for him...but hes on borrowed time the bellew fight couldnt have went any worse in terms of his career progression. Lost plus took a pretty serious injury at 36. You,d have to start to think joshua etc will just beat on him at this stage.

Always had him as the one to beat joshua...the styles almost perfect for it...but in seriousness i m not sure he was big enough. Giving away just to many advantages...same against klitchko.

 

Wlad has never been much of a body worker to be honest, certainly not in recent times as it can leave you more open. In round 6 though he should have gambled to the body a bit just to create openings elsewhere. Credit to AJ as he would avoiding a lot still in that round.

I think AJ's chin saved him actually. But not in the usual sense. If he stayed up from that right hand he'd have taken that following left hook clean and Wlad threw a lot into that punch. As he was on the way down he couldn't really leverage on it properly. I think that landing after the right would have been game over.

 

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Wlads movement.

Joshua's money shot was that overhand right, so why did Wlad spend the whole fight circling to his own left, even after being tagged by Joshua's right ?

 

Setting up his lead left hook which I dont think landed once the whole fight. Josh was heavily prepared for that and evaded about 50 attenpts

 

It was a big left hook in the 5th round which turned the fight and put AJ in huge trouble. He landed a few more in that round too.

 

Wlad always been a head hunter. In all his matches I've seen from him, he doesn't throw a lot of bodyshots.
That has always been a weak point of Wlad, he is very one-dimensional.

 

He made a big mistake, Whyte froze Joshua on the spot with body shots. If Wlad kept landing that straight right on his body it would make a massive difference in the fight.