Anthony Joshua is the real deal

Yeah, I'm not crazy about the "alpha" trend, myself.

All that bodybuilding.com meathead culture stuff is pretty embarr***ing.

 

I don't think that's unlikely, he's definitely the best HW prospect at the moment. But there's still unanswered questions about his chin, and stamina.

 

I think if there were, at least as regards chin, there would have been some markers along the way in the amateurs, as there were for, say, David Price.

Joshua fought some monster competition in the amateurs despite a ridiculously brief tenure of just over thirty bouts, facing higher quality than Price, and while he may have received some questionable decisions there were never the red flag moments that you had with Price, with the exception of a single defeat by RSC (lost thrice overall) to Mihai Nistor, a small but ferocious southpaw pressure machine with granite fists.

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That's a bit more excusable and easier to dismiss as having little to no bearing on his professional outlook than Price flopping around the canvas in his several defeats by RSC. (to Stiverne, Glazkov, Cammarrelle, etc.)


Stamina, over the championship twelve in the pros, of course, is untested in the amateurs. So that we really won't know about until we cross that bridge.

 

:good

Fair enough. I guess at the moment we have to ***ume that his chin is at least serviceable, but with his overly-muscular build, stamina might become an issue. Though if that does become a problem I'm sure it's something that trimming down a bit would fix. That seemed to help Wlad.

 

P.S any word on whether Mihai Nistor will be turning pro or not any time soon? We could have another Sultan Ibragimov on our hands here :deal

 

I'm not sure yet he's a real deal , so far he failed to win word championship and olympics .

 

What I like is that his movement is smooth and controlled.

All too often you see guys that are cut up and do have pretty good cardio but they squander it with all this jittery wasted energy ****. (Ken Norton, Shane Mosley, etc) I don't care how great a natural athlete you are, you can not bounce around like a hyperactive toddler if you're carrying an inordinate amount of muscle - or even just higher than average. That is encumbrance, and the more unnecessary movement the more it wears you down, no matter how much a built-to-last packhorse you're genetically blessed to be.

None of that from Joshua. He's measured. That bodes well.

You'd never call him stationary, but his footwork is minimalist. (yet still effective, in the mold of a Joe Louis)

 

Meaning he'll link up with Jeff Mayweather, who in turn will ruin his style and put severe handicaps on his dangerousness and entertainment value? :yep

 

I've never seen someone gas themselves out like Szpilka did against Jennings with all of those exaggerated pseudo-slick defensive motions... That was ridiculous lol.

Joshua definitely moves pretty well for a man of his frame/size, it's not too often that there are 6'6+ 250+ heavyweights who move as well as he does. :good

 

:nono

He needs to avoid Jeff, and trainers like him like the plague.

I wish Sultan had stayed around longer, he was a good heavyweight who could have rebounded with a better trainer. Might have even been still relevant at this point in time if he stayed motivated/healthy.

 

Agreed. He was right there in the mix with guys like Chagaev (long before anyone even started talking about Povetkin, let alone Pulev) as the main runners-up chasing after K2.

...and hell, Chagaev is currently still in the 'world title' mix, somehow. No reason to believe Iggy with a proper coach and head firmly in the game wouldn't be as well.

 

He isn't without flaws, and I can spot things needing refining even as recently as Skelton/Airich/Bakthov (and even though none of those lasted very long) but there is nothing to me so far that says Joshua is at risk to go totally bust. I think if stays the course and is brought along the right way, he is a legit top heavy for years to come. The way people once thought of Price...despite the warning echos from his amateur days.

 

He is the real deal but he better wait until Klit retires.

 

I don't think his stamina is is a problem. It's hard to say from his early fights, but his last one against Bahktov for example, he went hell for leather for just under 2 rounds, and wasn't showing a single sign of tiring. If he had a serious stamina problem he would be at least breathing through his mouth.

His chin is going to come under scrutiny, but the last 2 dominant heavy weights have been categorised by having weak chins, so it doesn't necessarily mean you won't have success, although can you imagine if he's granite chinned??

Comparisons to David Price are just daft and I won't rise to them!

 

1. 2 rounds says nothing about stamina...jury's out until someone takes him into deeper waters.
2. True, a talented enough fighter can get by even at HW if they sport a bad chin, and he does seem to have enough talent if need be to fall back on if that is the case... I just don't think it will be an issue. A lone RSC loss (to a honey badger like Nistor) in a three dozen bout amateur career - more than half of which consisted of experience in the Worlds and Olympics - just isn't setting off alarm bells for me...and nothing so far in the pros has even hinted at problems
3. I wasn't comparing them apples to apples, just using the Price hype (pre-Tiger) for a point of reference. Price was expected to vault into the upper echelon, though a vocal minority cautioned about his chin. Similar things are being said about Joshua, except he doesn't have that stigma following him. (which many ignored, foolishly in hindsight, in Price's case)