A question regarding Joshua ?

He’s too big tall athletic and powerful for most of the heavyweight champions pre 1980

Guys like Dempsey and Marciano couldn’t possibly compete with a 6’7 250 athletic freak like Joshua

 

I say yes. Any modern super heavyweight champion with skills, as Joshua is I think should start around the 18-25th spot after a few title defenses vs top ten ranked men.

Joshua is simply too big for smaller champions without a punch to have a realistic chance to defeat.

If Joshua wins, Parker will add something to his resume. Parker is in his prime, undefeated, can box some, has fast hand and solid power. Parker is correctly rated 3-5th best in the world. Not an easy night type of opponent.

If Joshua wants a good legacy, he needs to pick more opponents like this, remain champion for a while and give the up and comers a chance.

 

Nonsense.

 

That Romania guy who KOed AJ in the amateurs was about 6ft and 14 st .He seemed to manage ok.

 

I think he's gone far enough to put him up against past ATG heavies right now. I mean, he could still improve, but you can reasonably say that he has the attributes to have a chance to beat any past heavy. Doesn't mean he would, but you can give him that chance. I suppose if this were 1973 and George Foreman just beat Joe Frazier there'd be questions of "Can we start comparing Foreman to the heavies of the past 80 years"? And today, many people use the Foreman who battered Frazier to put against any ATG heavy. Although at the time,many people would've said Foreman hasn't done enough to prove he could beat John Sullivan or Jack Johnson or the other Jack....Dempsey. Now, many people would use that same George Foreman to beat all of the above named.

So I say we can compare AJ right now to past ATG fighters.

 

I`d say the the 6ft 6" part would be more of a factor when fighting smaller greats like Dempsey because Wilder proved when he knocked out Ortiz that a 214lbs heavy can stop a 240lbs pound fighter and in fact AJ is coming into the Parker fight under 17st 9lbs because he was too slow against Takam who was able to use his shorter height like Mike Tyson and get underneath AJ`s punches but it isn`t AJ`s size a lone that would be too much for punchers like Marciano it`s the way he uses distance starting combo`s with his lead hand and finishing with his lead if you finish a combo with your rear hand you are shortening the distance between you and the shorter guy which is why Marciano leaned down crouching to his right so fighters would overcomitt and he could counter with his right (film studies) also Louis KO`d the massive 6ft 6" Buddy Baer easily and Dempsey KO`d the much leaner 6ft 6" Willard so it`s not just size.

 

That Romanian guy is Mihai Nistor, and he's about 6'1" tall. Dempsey and Marciano could compete with Joshua, beating him is a different story.

 

AJ's sheer size plus his skill would give him the edge vs any cruiser sized heavy. Remember, a much larger man doesn't need to be as skilled as the smaller man, only skilled enough. It's why Trevor Berbick would likely beat Sugar Ramos or Enie Terrell would likely beat Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Even though in both cases the smaller men are the more skilled men. But in the case of Marciano and Dempsey, they are arguably giving skill away to AJ as well, depending on who you ask.

 

You`re wrong when Foreman beat Frazier he was considered unbeatable because Frazier was already considered a legend by beating Ali in the most famous fight of all time up to that point and was a lot better than Parker is. Nobody gave Ali a chance by the time he fought Foreman because George also beat Norton in two rounds, even if AJ beats Parker who is going to follow up with that is on the level Norton was and is he going to knock them out in two rounds? Ali and Frazier`s era was the greatest era in heavyweight history AJ just doesn`t have the opposition that Foreman had and that`s a shame.

 

AJ has improved since his amateur days. If you took Ali who won the Olympic gold in Rome in 1960 and had him fight Sonny Liston in 1960 as his first pro opponent, Ali likely would've been setting himself up to be hurt. Or even Cleveland Williams or Zora Folley for that matter. I wouldn't take what AJ did or didn't do in his amateur days to judge him now.

 

Going into the fight, Foreman was the underdog vs Frazier. It was an upset, but people still may have questioned it as it wasn't the "best Frazier" and Norton had already been stopped before.

 

AJ would blow that Romanian guy away now, Hearns lost to Pryor easily as an amatuer he hadn`t learned how to box or punch properly yet, AJ is 10x better than when he won the olympics and keeps improving all the time, don`t forget Mike Tyson didn`t make the olympic team because he was beat in the trials by Biggs and look what he did to him in the pros, having said that I`m pretty sure Maciano and Dempsey punched a lot harder than this Romanian Nistor anyway.

 

AJ doesn`t have much to choose from though!