As soon as Ruiz sticks it on him the same thing will happen. Joshua looks hopeless on the backfoot against a short opponent who throws quick and moves his head. The stamina has been completely exposed.
I’d go with that - Joshua off night, didn’t look focused, Ruiz fought the fight of his life - the same Ruiz who failed to impress against Parker - after a FULL training camp. Joshua will be fully motivated for the return & imo will win convincingly.
Ruiz's performance against Parker is irrelevant and he was far from unimpressive anyway in that fight. We know several things from the fight on Saturday: - Ruiz can take Joshua's punches. He took a heavy shot and got straight back up completely recovered. - Ruiz can hurt Joshua. - Joshua has a poor gas tank. - Joshua is awful on the backfoot. - Ruiz had no respect for Joshua's pawing jab. - Ruiz was on the front foot throughout the fight. Forget about any rumours of concussions, getting sparked in sparring or having a panic attack. Eddie Hearn has rubbished all those claims on Twitter. People keep saying that Joshua didn't look focused. He came in looking bigger and as lean as ever in tremendous shape and said all the right things before the fight. Meanwhile Ruiz comes in at 270lb, not even making the effort to shave off 10lbs at least and was joking about being fuelled by Snickers for the fight. There is absolutely no evidence that Joshua can handle Ruiz style and to put all the in-ring wrongs right will take a tremendous amount of learning - i.e. learning how to use the jab and deal with Ruiz's style. I keep saying this but the rematch is a near 50:50 shootout in Ruiz favour, more like 60:40 Ruiz. Saying "Joshua will be focused and motivated this time" is meaningless and has no basis. If he can't get motivated for an American debut with his titles on the line where is the motivation going to come from in the rematch? If he was not focused and nervous and having panic attacks, how much more nervous will he be this time where a second defeat turns him into David Price? Joshua was completely fine and was just absolutely schooled in the ring by a better fighter. A lot of people on this forum foresaw this but just didn't expect Ruiz to be the man to do it. I personally thought Povetkin would do the job that Ruiz did on Joshua on Saturday.
Joshua got hit by a heavyweight and didn’t recover - it happens. Joshua landed first, then got complacent looking to finish. Bad mistake - I can’t see that happening again. As for not being focused - before the start of the fight he looked distracted. Whatever the reason that’s a mental thing - absolutely nothing to do with looking lean. If he’s mentally right I don’t seem him losing IMO
Jab, jab, knock his head off. In all seriousness, I’m no trainer, but imo all that muscle seems to have slowed him down. A tighter defence, bit more speed and hopefully he ll find a knock out before Ruiz does ... & if he’s mentally right, his boxing record says he generally does.
He didn't just get hit by one shot. He was backed up from the first round. Never managed to establish his jab after even two feel out rounds. Didn't mix it up, didn't work the body, It was the same Jab 1-2 manoeuvre over and over again which is too basic to nullify Ruiz. Also he never even saw the shot coming - he asked McCracken after the first KD "what punch was it". Ruiz has deceptively very quick hands, probably the quickest hands AJ has been in with as a pro and he gets taken out. Like I said, the rematch is a shootout. It may well be a case of whoever lands first wins (although even that is not true because Joshua landed first on Saturday and still got taken out). But in your first post you seemed confident that Joshua wins the rematch "convincingly". I just can't see any rationale for that level of confidence. It's a pure shoot-out and Joshua will logically be more nervous than before because a second defeat will be catastrophic.
You obviously have a good indeed of boxing - I agree with most of your points. It is just an opinion - maybe I’ll be proved wrong and Ruiz will become an all time great, but I think Joshua will sort his head out & deal with Ruiz in much the way you’ve stated - knocking him out before he gets tagged himself - it’s how he’s operated his whole career. Coming in lighter will hopefully improve his make him sharpness / movement.
It's all opinions at the end of the day. I'm not a Joshua fan but I just think going straight in for an immediate rematch is mental because of the consequences of a defeat.
No i don't mate, not on that night. i just feel that is the lesser of two evils for him, and he has a better chance
That's what i mean. He can sit back and let the Ruiz's of the world walk him down and beat him up, or he can go in there, have a fire fight, and have a better chance of getting his man out of there. Because the Klitschko approach doesn't seem to be working
Did he try to spoil though and hold on close up ? Ive only seen the highlights and I never seen any thing that looked like Vlad would do.
Where to start? to give a break down on what happened and to predict what will happen in a rematch depends on many factors. I seriously cannot believe how poor AJ was, he just didnt seem right. *AJ's jab, why was he keeping the left hand low? why didnt he use it more and with more snap and stepping in with it from round 1? Andy was walking him down from the first bell. * Stamina, Why was AJ blowing in the 3rd round? is he carrying too much muscle? can he lose another half a stone, come down too around 17st ?? * Hand hand speed, Is it me or is he getting even slower? * Keeping Range, AJ fighting small and not tall makes it even harder to keep range no commanding jab,his feet were a mess too. * Poor slipping and no head movement and inside game, basically once Andy got close he was hitting at will there was no holding or tying up If AJ cant improve on some of these issues, Andy will do this again, AJ has to be better in a rematch, problem is can he fix some of these issues in like 6 months?
He held a few times but the ref was good, broke them up quickly and the fight was largely free of holding or spoiling. Was a clean fight. By "Klitschko approach" he means the cautious backfoot approach on the jab. Joshua is nothing like Klitschko though, we all know that.
