Hughie Fury and Chisora I suppose are decent victories. Only got a split decision vs Chisora lol but I suppose Whyte won only a SD first time around.
It's not a deep, heavy top ten at HW and Hughie wasn't in it and still their fight was controversial. Maybe you could argue it was a meaningful contest, idk, certainly wouldn't seem particularly so to me. Like i'm not saying to myself "he got by Hughie Fury so maybe he could do something with Joshua." As I would be if he'd defeated Whyte or Povetkin or Hunter. In the last four years.
Hughie's camp went pretty mental about it, got a lot of play over here. But, as I said, he could have laid him out in two and i still wouldn't be saying "he really showed Hughie, got a good chance with Joshua".
They were never ring top 10. Maybe some WBO top 10. Current era ring top 10 is the same as last era top 10, but everyone is 10-15 years olďer
I fully expect Joshua to KO Pulev but there could be some problematic moments for Joshua. Pulev's jab is decent but he can't stand outside and try to out jab Joshua. That'd be disastrous. He needs to use the jab to get inside. Pulev is not too bad at inside fighting with short winging hooks. He showed some of that inside skill against Fury. Unfortunately that will require a ref that allows for some close quarters fighting.
A tough one to get excited by for Joshua. The best he can do is about as good as an old Wlad did against a significantly younger Pulev. So really nothing he does in this fight will impress. He can more or less only disappoint. And at the same time he can't be too distracted by the Fury fight looming on the horizon.
Joshua just due to the youth factory has a huge advantage over Pulev and should be able to get a knockout, but if Joshua comes in heavy or foolishly lets Pulev get in a rhythm I wouldn’t be shocked if Pulev pulled the upset. Even though I’ve never been too high on Pulev when he starts letting his hands go and gets relaxed he’s very good at getting guys to walk into his shots.
I think Pulev will win the early rounds and people will start to worry about Joshua. But I think Joshua will start to gain confidence after 3 rounds like Povetkin, and will KO him inside 5-6 rounds.
Pulev doesn't turn 40 till next year , he's past it but is still good enough to pose problems with his jab and experience. His style was never a youthful one anyway , he was always , methodical and awkward. Im interested to see how Joshua deals with his jab and awkwardness. Good fight , ill watch.
Pulev hasn't properly earned a shot since the Wlad loss IMO. He's been inexplicably favoured by the IBF twice to engineer a situation in which he can force through a title shot. I hope he gets beaten up and removed from the title picture here. I want this entitled never was stopped from holding up the division any further.
The stakes are sneakily high here for AJ. He played it safe in Ruiz 2, didn't avenge the KO, just got the belts back. So is he keeping the belts warm for Fury or does he want more? If he isn't the composed and ferocious finisher Fury (and Usyk?) are going to smell the blood in the water and come in that much stronger against him.
Depends on the fight he's in. He had no need to do anything but jab to beat Ruiz, why take the risk? Smaller fighters with faster hands seem to trouble Joshua the most, especially if they hit him on the temple.
The Chisora SD was as much an SD as Floyd vs Canelo was an MD. No idea what that judge was watching, as it was anywhere from 9-3 to 11-1 for Pulev.
