Anthony Joshua - 2016 to 2019 - now that his reign has ended, where does he stand all time?

He doesnt stand for long, thats for sure.

 

Bruno never quit......

Haye was a fraud.......

AJ is somewhere in between....

I said a million times he is a KO waiting to happen, a manufactured fighter on home soil, the A side, anyone with a boxing brain knew that he would fold the moment some one fires back despite being hurt......poorchin/stamina and especially a below par Ring IQ were evident way back.....

Ther is a reason the Wilder fight was stalled beyond stalled...........because Wilder would have clipped him quicker that pudding Ruiz.

If AJ ever finds his stones to face Wilder he will get KO’ed, I take ANY bet on that.

 

We cannot rank him now until the end of his career. how he performs in the rematch will be important and I do believe he will still fight Fury and Wilder. I do think his career is consequential as he is a box office hit with wide appeal beyond boxing that even grandmothers know of his existence.

 

I was a massive fan of Haye but his stamina wasn't great either although he got better at conserving his energy, and Haye always fought very cautiously again ts big opponents.

Also at HEAVYWEIGHT Joshua has a better resume than Haye.

 

He had a decent run to be honest.

Klitschko, Takam, Parker, Povetkin is 4 solid defences.

If he never wins a fight again the worst you can say is he had a decent reign for a couple of years.

 

True in a technical sense, but it also leads easily into a conversation about his career overall. There are no real conversations for a reign, i.e. no one really says Louis had the best single reign, followed by Wlad, followed by Holmes etc. They use it as a lynchpin to a career evaluation. It would be interesting to do it in that manner, though, and not really be distracted at all by overarching career considerations.

By that metric, I guess I'd put AJ's reign itself, separated fully from his overall legacy, in the top 15- 20 reigns of HW history. Maybe something like:
1. Louis
2. Ali (final reign)
3. Marciano
4. Holmes
5. Johnson
6. Wlad (final reign)
7. Lewis (final reign)
8. Dempsey
9. Frazier
10. Foreman (first reign)
11. Tyson (first reign)
12. Vitali (last reign)
13. AJ
14. Holyfield (first reign)
15 AJ

Looking at it, I'd change some of these around. But no question, the reigns would be very different from the actual overall ATG legacy list

 

It was an okay reign. Some good defenses, some boring ones, but ultimately a bit disappointing since we didn't get the big matches that everyone wanted to see. It also had a very devastating end; One of the worst beatings I've ever seen a heavyweight champion take on his way to losing the title. I'd say it's comparable to Holyfield's first reign, which also had some good defenses, some lackluster ones, and a big money fight that never materialized.

 

I don't think it is wrongheaded at all.
Unless I'm forgetting something, Chagaev, Valuev and Haye are not really regarded as legit world champions at all, they were "paper"/"alphabet" titlists at best.
Joshua may have done better than them but I don't think that says a lot.

I noted that 4 of his 7 world title fight wins were "GOOD WINS" so it's not as if I'm being unfair on the guy. Just being honest.

 

That's fair enough. Where would you rank his reign, then, relating it back through history? Say what you will about the Haye's and the Valuev's, but they are higher than some of the titlists we've seen (Martin, Liahkovitch). And there aren't too many champs/belt holders much higher than them, you get into fringe ATG territory much beyond the Haye Valuev level. I mean, sure, they aren't as good as Patterson, but Patterson is usually considered an ATG. And AJ's resume isn't too far off of Patterson's right now. Actually, this reign was a lot better than Patterson's first reign. Maybe Ruiz is his Ingo Johanson, and he will come back and beat him in a rematch (personally, I don't think he will).

 

It's hard to say where I'd rate his reign.
In truth, I tend to completely discount the Martin, Breazeale and Molina wins because I didn't consider Joshua a proven world class fighter at all until he defeated Klitschko. The IBF making Charles Martin champ was an insult (to their own title !).

I'm not 100% sold on Floyd Patterson being a real ATG heavyweight but, like you touch on, Patterson's greatest claim to such status is the incredible comeback where he KO'd Johansson. (judged purely on his reign prior to that, Patterson ranks as pretty awful)
Patterson also made it 2-1 in the third fight.
So, using Patterson as a comparison, Joshua is quite far off.

The fact that he "reigned" after Tyson Fury's win over the champion Wlad ..... and with an improving Deontay Wilder knocking his own run of tomato cans over for the WBC title .... always cast a huge shadow over him.
And even more so now.

 

Alphabet champs like Vitali Klitschko & AJ don't belong on any ATG H/W lists. They didn't do enough to distinguish themselves as legitimate world champions of their eras.

Go for it, bro. I'd say Sonny Liston as H/W champion of the world was a far more historically significant figure than Vitali & Joshua combined.

Liston was the best H/W in the world long before he ever became champ.

 

You've got sand in your brain, sandman. Vitali is widely considered top 15 HW ATG, certainly top 20. We've had polls, and his accomplishments, resume, and legacy to the sport track very well in that vein. Glad that braindead haters like you arent the ones making decisions about atgs, fortunately Vit is already a first ballot hofer.

If you claim Liston was the best HW in the world long before he became champ, sounds to me like you are admitting his rather pitiful term as lineal champ didn't give him atg status, but rather his whole career. And yet you won't use the same metric for Vitali, who has at least as good an argument as the best hw in the world, and for a more defined era than the tweener era of Liston. Why don't you put your top 25 list up there? I'd be glad to shoot it down for you.