Anthony Joshua: best Commonwealth heavyweight champion in last 2 decades?

:think Going all the way back to Lennox's reign (which ended in 1993, when Joshua was a toddler, with the WBC proclaiming The Lion the world heavyweight champion after Bowe threw his belt in the bin, with Lennox thus abandoning the lesser prestige of being Commonwealth & Lonsdale outright champ and creating a domestic power vacuum as he moved on to greener pastures)

His competition includes:

Henry Akinwande
Scott Welch
Julius Francis
Danny Williams
Michael Sprott
Matt Skelton
Martin Rogan
Sam Sexton
Dereck Chisora
Tyson Fury
David Price
Lucas Browne


How does the Joshua that blitzed Cornish fare h2h against the Commonwealth HW champ versions of all of the above?

I think he could well run the gauntlet a perfect twelve-zip (12).

 

Joshua or Fury, for sure, yes.

I reckon Joshua will go on to do greater things though, so I'd say he Joshua.

 

Henry Akinwande........KO4
Scott Welch................KO2
Julius Francis...............KO1
Danny Williams............KO1
Michael Sprott.............KO2
Matt Skelton...............KO4
Martin Rogan...............KO3
Sam Sexton................KO3
Dereck Chisora............KO4
Tyson Fury..................KO3
David Price..................KO1
Lucas Browne..............KO3

 

Bold proclamation, mo!

THREE WHOLE GUYS take him into the deep waters of the 4th?

Nobody has done it yet. :bart

 

Fury is the only one on that list I feel you could make a case for but I'd pick him to eat those 12.

 

Is that a crack at Kingpin...???

 

Too early... Calm down guys. Joshua is a definitive blue chipper, along with Parker but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

 

Key word: disciplined

 

No worries there; IMO Fury ought to be as much a wide dog as Berto.

...and if he somehow plucks the cottontail from his scally, yes, he'll be as much a candidate as ever there's been to hot-potato in his first defense unless he scrapes the very bottom of the barrel of remotely viable contenders.

I do feel like Fury would've stopped the Highlander of yesterday, but maybe not in under two minutes' time. AJ, on the other hand, probably takes out the 14-0 Del Boy of Fury vs. Chisora I comfortably inside schedule.

So comparing the versions that actually captured the Commonwealth title, I'd say Joshua is a different class altogether than Fury. Comparing the Joshua that beat Cornish yesterday with Fury now (improved as much as can be done in the last 4 years, all of whatever his potential fully realized, and poised to contend for a world title) I still think Joshua is the more potent h2h force and would topple Fury at the moment (as well as beat more top heavyweight contenders, and beat the rest in common in more dominating fashion)

 

Yet he's resorted to facing guys like Molina, and Duhaupas... Go figure. But he beats Fury, Chisora, and Akinwande who proved himself against far better competition than Stiverne. You've done messed up boy, you've unleashed the FURY!!!!!! :admin

 

Nope. Just pointing out that nobody save Jason Gavern and Konstantin Airich has even made it round 3 (and they both didn't even make it halfway into that)

 

Eh...don't think my thread's premise is getting too far ahead.

With all due respect to Akinwande, Welch, Francis, Williams, Sprott, Skelton, Rogan, Sexton, Chisora, Price and Browne - we aren't exactly disrespecting a murderer's row of world beaters here by elevating a decorated amateur, gold Medalist and physically gifted marvel like Joshua as the class of the post-Lewis era of Commonwealth titlists in the unlimited class.

The only argument would be Fury, and opinions are fairly split down the middle as to whether Joshua has more upside than him (or indeed, may already be his better or at least equal).