David Haye vs Anthony Joshua (Usyk fight)

Joshua was gunshy, stiff, had leaky defense, and rarely put weight into his shots. Haye should win a clear decision, might even score a knockdown.

 

AJ would win. Usyk is much better than haye, pretty much in every aspect except power. Joshua should take him out

 

If Joshua gets clipped it's game over, and Joshua is nowhere near as good as Klitschko in terms of controlling the distance. Joshua might be a favorite but not a big one. Dude is chinny as hell

 

Haye was chinny as well. I doubt the smaller less skilled man lands first

 

Haye never really impressed me as a heavyweight. Not that Joshua is great but at least he won a number of real fights as a true heavyweight.

 

one thing haye has over usyk in abundance is punching power.

 

Joshua isn't chinny. His chin isn't great, but isn't bad either.

He has a much better chin than Wlad.

 

I'd favour Joshua. Generally the guys that have been able to hurt him, have had to take shots to do it.

Usyk didn't, but he was a far better technician than Haye.

 

“Usyk fight AJ” he was the same as always.

 

I got a draw!

 

Haye was never a genuine HW and didn’t achieve much as a HW other than beating a 7 foot tall mummy for a WBA belt.

Even the current more cautious AJ beats the best HW version of Haye via a decision.

 

I would favour Joshua by decision

 

I think the recency of Joshua's loss to Usyk, coupled with enough time passing for people to forget how generally underwhelming Haye was as a Heavyweight, has blurred things a little here.

Haye always talked a good game at Heavyweight but the truth is he was pretty one-dimensional and easily spooked by genuine knockout power. He had to fight in spurts and even against Ruiz there were periods where he was eating jabs and taking breathers because he'd shot his bolt early. His usual low output, hands down, 'in and out' style worked well enough against a lumbering giant who looked as if he could barely even turn his punches over anymore in Valuev, but it was never going to cut the mustard against Wladimir and I don't think it would against Joshua either.

I just don't see him breaking his habits and putting it on Joshua. He was too wary of big hitters once he'd been tagged and hurt by Barrett in what was supposed to be his big coming out party at Heavyweight. I just see Haye getting disheartened and discouraged once he's felt a few big jabs early, and being reduced to circling on the outside hoping to lure Joshua onto that one big shot. I could see Haye going the distance because like the Wlad fight, I suspect he might just settle for that and not take too many risks, but I think it would be a comfortable UD for Joshua in that case.

 

Haye early.