Why did McCracken set Joshua up to try and box Usyk?

Don't think this is the reason but I'll say it anyway. I did read that McCracken had been busy with Olympic preparations not long before or during the lead-up to the AJ - Usyk fight.

I wonder if the very technical boxing-first Olympic/amateur mindset he would've no-doubt been in had a bearing and he imposed that a bit too much on AJ?

 

This is the facts.
Joshua went out to box and hopefully clip uysk with something big.failing that hopefully the fight would be close enough to get a home town robbery.

This 'why didnt aj steamroll him 'narrative is idiotic.
Sure he may knock him out but more than likely he would be blowing out his arse after 4 rounda and uysk would hospitalise him.

Its good we get the rematch. We will put this idiotic myth to bed once and for all. Aj isnt good enough to beat uysk he has a tiny punches chance at best.
Uysk clocked joshua early in the fight. Joshua knew he could get knocked out after that, kinda went into sirvival mode

 

It was an odd strategy. I think he believed this lighter more mobile and jab orientated Joshua we've seen since Ruiz 2 would be able to maintain distance behind the jab and keep Usyk on the outside and never allow the shorter man in to the fight.

This was obviously wrong, I think he underestimated Usyk and more importantly didn't understand Usyk's style. Anyone that's watched Usyk intently knows much of his game is about lead hand control and taking away his opponents jab and McCracken never accounted for that and this version of Joshua without his jab is pretty much useless. McCracken never recognized the threat of what if Joshua couldn't establish the jab like he did vs Ruiz, Pulev and Povetkin.

So the limits of McCracken's knowledge led to him underestimating Usyk because he didn't recognize the threat that Usyk posed and so wasn't able to create an effective plan to deal with him.

 

He didn't

 

It's easy to say just go out and blast the smaller guy but Usyk is not called the cat for nothing and Joshua is not that mobile.

 

His tactics in the first fight were to maximise his chances of winning.
It helped keep the pace relatively slow and atill gave aj the chance to land something big. Failing that quiet rounds give more chance of a british robbery.
Aj got tagged hard early in the fight ,he knew uysk could knock him out.
Hence why mccracken never got him to put the foot on the gas, he knew he would get knocked out.

The only adjustment he will make will see hin get knocked out 6-9th round, he may have a better chance of winning by a tiny margin but the finish will be brutal if he does that.
Basically he has no chance against uysk.

 

Maybe he just didn’t have enough faith in AJ’s chin and endurance?

 

Yeah they must have thought AJs power would be enough of a deterrent to make up the shortfall in skill. It wasn't even close to being enough, Usyk didn't look reluctant at any stage.

 

I hope AJ goes all out in the rematch and throws caution to the wind. I think he'll fall short again, but trying to box conservatively just wont work against Usyk. Even if he falls short, he'd get so much more respect.

 

He set AJ up to try and box because they were scared of getting knocked out. It's pretty simple. They probably knew from the beginning Usyk was not the kind of guy they could just bum rush and take out early, too skilled and scrappy. When push came to shove they should have gone for it, but AJ didn't want any smoke with Usyk and it showed. Body language is everything.

 

You forgot about being hurt vs Ruiz