AJ is a great physical athlete, but not a great boxer..

Yeah aj is strong and bullish at times but his boxing is lacking and his weaknesses outweigh his attributes imo

Aj strUggles with movement and boxing, he's better in a fight

 

With AJ, you can see the difference a late start makes compared to the upbringing of Fury and other traveller / gypsy boxers (BJS, Gorman etc). They are taught to fight as soon as they can toddle and fill the ranks of amateur clubs. Tend to have a very natural "feel" for boxing - fast, fluid hands and good footwork. The problem is that they tend to drop out as adults - expectation to start earning a wage, have a family, difficulty in maintaining discipline in the home environment.

AJ is a study in late-life dedication. The New Age Boxing podcast, which has contributors who spent time in the London gyms of AJ's amateur career, is pretty relentless in its criticism of him but admits that AJ has succeeded due to sheer hard work: the dedication to training is one aspect of his life that is not fake. He has earned success through a willingness to suffer in order to compensate for a lack of natural slickness.

Reflection on the above makes me think, anyone want to fund a Kickstarter to send a traveller child to one of those Cuban boxing Borstals, where their young amateurs are trained, and then, once adult, give then to either Sith Lord Booth or the Ingles?!

 

This is very true about the travellers. Despite the abundance of fighting talent from that community, food as got to be put on the table, so the vast majority are pulled away from the sport to earn.

You could see the difference between the one who’d been boxing since he was a little kid and the one who’d been doing it since his mid teens. Parker had the more fluid style last night. Head and hands always moving, throwing feints. It’s such a underrated fundamental aspect of boxing. It makes an opponent reluctant to throw a straight right (or left if Southpaw) for fear of being countered. BJS does it, Groves, Campbell, Fury, Taylor, Burnett, Frampton etc etc.

Joshua is learning all the time, you can see the improvement in every fight. His jab is actually very good, and he’s so big he can easily step out of range. I say it lots, but it’s methodical, and efficient. He is a good boxer, and he uses his physical attributes to his advantage. Number 1 in his division without a doubt.

 

Look, I've given AJ some stick over his last couple of performances, I'm not sold on Joshua but..

Do you think we forget how little boxing experience he has compared to others? Amateur and Professional?

Do we just take for granted how much he has actually achieved in such a short space of time?

 

I once did a site visit to a traveller camp. I spoke to a couple aged around 24 y.o and they had 6 kids. I sat in their caravan, with toddlers, puppies, and goslings crawling over me and pissing on me, whilst they expressed amazement that, as a 40 y.o., I had no children and owned a house. The men seemed to spend all their leisure time getting pissed and eating kebabs. No wonder the incredible traveller talent at youth level tends to dissipate in the senior ranks.

 

Part of the issue is he’s forced into a fast track route due to popularity and public demands

He’s been in world title fights from like fight 15 or something. Not that the opponents have all been world title level, but it’s an unusually high level to box at so early on

He’s good enough and he’s doing enough cos he’s winning. I just think he could be a lot lot better

 

AJ has different plans.
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/an...-boxing-iq-rather-than-wargames-a3803851.html

 

I think it shows wha t lot of people have thought for a long time...
Stick him in with Fury and there's only 1 winner, Joshua and Wilder have their equalizers but if they're up against a world class operator who won't let them land it then they are in trouble.

The reverse of this point is, will any beat Joshua on a scorecard on sky?
Saturdays cards may have been an indicator for that, Joshua won the fight, but did he really only lose 1/2 rounds?

 

Yeah I had it scored that way.

Compubox statistics backed it up and said Parker only our landed him in one of the rounds.

 

He showed reasonable fundamentals against Parker but he is far from a master boxer. Solid jab but not much punch variety, no doubling up of the jab, still lacking in head movement, no feinting. Just decent understanding of the basics really.

 

He's obviously flawed. But the whole division is, I still think he could beat them all on his day. But there's obviously a few that can beat him too on their day. Same goes for all the division imo.

Even Tyson who is clearly the best boxer can be caught and knocked out.

Wilder is also a phenomenal athlete like AJ but not a great boxer, just with different attributes and flaws

 

I think AJ needs to come in much lighter in the rematch and get some of that athleticism back.