I'm not a fan of Joshua but have to say that he has an impressive resume especially for only something like 26 fights. In all of Joshua's title fights he has had less fights than all of his opponents I think he would beat Ruiz 8/10 times if they fought. I heard a rumour that Joshua had been knocked out in training before the first Ruiz fight and that that may have effected him during the first Ruiz fight Has anyone else heard this?
Errr, AJ's resume is solid enough compared to others but if you start having a closer look it isn't as good as many people believe. Sometimes timing is everything, right fights at the right time and AJ has been moved along superbly by Hearn in my opinion. You have to give Hearn credit for how he has promoted him. As for the rumours of AJ being knocked out in sparring, there have been so many, Dubois, Okolie and others have apparently "stopped" him in sparring. I don't mean lights out, knocked out, I mean hitting him and him being all over the place and having the spar stopped. Some were denied, some where ignored, it's sparring, doesn't mean much but it suggests AJ isn't exactly blessed in the chin department and watching his last few fights we would have to assume hue knows that himself now.
Aj fought Parker at the peak of his career. Aj was matched against Whyte when both were a prospect and nobody really knew either guys ceiling. Breazeale was undefeated and had good power when Aj fought him as a stay busy. Takam made a career of making the top fighters look unimpressive and Aj fought him anyway. You can point at the age of a couple of his best wins but there is very little downtime in Ajs resume where is isn't fighting quality opponents. The same can't be said for anyone else in the division except for maybe Povektkin.
Peak? How old was Parker? You're talking like Parker is finished, Whyte went on to the fight injured (had surgery the next day), wasn't signed with anybody, didn't have the benefits of sports science and a top promoter, there are stories of Whyte selling tickets to his fights an hour before fighting. It wasn't a top prospect vs another top prospect, it was a top prospect with all the benefits and a fighter who did enough in that fight to get signed by Matchroom. It's a myth Whyte wa the same type of fighter he is now. Breazeale was battered with punches and punches and went many rounds, AJ finished him but not as clinical and as brutally as Wilder did. Takam was a late replacement, I believe for Pulev, Takam was knocked out, KNOCKED OUT by Chisora, was stopped prematurely against AJ, in that AJ was blowing out his backside. Ruiz was a late replacement, AJ got beat. AJ has been matched perfectly, great work by Hearn but we saw against old man Pulev and the other I mentioned that AJ isn't what people keep saying he is.
Anthony Joshua needed a highlight reel knockout. He hasn't had one in a long time. They were still showing clips of his non-title stoppage of Whyte from five years ago in the build-up to this, because he didn't have any good recent clips. Joshua has done what he needed to do to set up the Tyson Fury fight. I like Joshua as a fighter. He's got a big punch and he's chinny. Most of the time, that makes for an entertaining watch (even when he doesn't go down, because you feel like he could at any time). I'm glad he fought through his fear and instead of coasting went for the KO Saturday. Pulev wasn't really offering anything back. He was right there for Joshua to score a spectacular KO. It finally came. But he needs to be more aggressive. If you take the belts out of it and just look at the heavyweight picture with Tyson Fury as the World champion (and has been since the Wlad win) and all the other alphabet title fights that have occurred since then as just one heavyweight contender fighting another, the picture becomes very clear. As of today, I'd rate Joshua the top contender over Wilder based on the fact that Joshua was impressive Saturday and is back on the winning track (after the humiliating knockout loss to late sub Andy Ruiz) while Wilder still hasn't fought since his only loss to the World Champ. If Wilder came back next time out against someone rated higher than Pulev and knocked them out, I'd probably move Wilder up to number one and drop Joshua down to #2. As it stands today, I'd rate them: Tyson Fury (World Champ) 1. Anthony Joshua 2. Deontay Wilder 3. Alexander Povetkin I don't have anything negative to say about Joshua after Saturday. My initial thought when I heard about the matchup was Joshua-Pulev would probably look like Holmes-Zanon from years ago. In the end, that's kind of how I view it. Nice KO. Nothing earth shattering. But it was much needed for Joshua. I hope we see Fury-Joshua next. If we can't get that, and Joshua opts to fight Usyk, who I don't think is a top heavyweight, I'd like to see Fury fight Wilder in a third fight. At this point, I just want to see the top guys fight. When they fought two times a year, it kind of sucked. If the top guys are only fighting once a year, then the odd "optional" defenses need to end. Just too much down time between fights. At this rate, it may take Joshua five more years just to get to 30 wins.
His resume is fine and very solid. The only thing missing is a fight over one of the other top dogs, really.... just Fury. And we may get that.
