Anthony Joshua "Wladimir Klitschko was my toughest opponent"

Yeah, a war against a half worn out fighter. 5 or 6 years before that fight the result would have been very different:

Wlad KO5 Bodybuilder by fracture of Joshuas wafer jaw.

 

Wlad and Usyk are from similar background.

 

Being stopped relatively early is less grueling and challenging than going to war and needing to peel yourself off the canvas to win against a veteran your own size who hits like a truck. Against Ruiz, the loss had just as much to do with Joshua burning himself out trying to go for the KO as it did Ruiz's fast crisp combinations and pressure. There was also a moment when the ref was waving the fight off and Joshua protested so he can cling to that as well ("I could have continued"). If Joshua paced himself better and didn't underestimate Ruiz, it would have been a very different fight. Joshua won pretty easily in the rematch with a very basic change of tactics so it's understandable why he thought the Wladmir fight was more challenging given the context.

Usyk schooled him, sure, but Joshua wasn't really hurt and received horrible instructions from his corner. He thought he was winning. So in his mind the Usyk fight wasn't as difficult as the Wladmir fight because he wasn't in as much pain and can just blame his corner for a bad strategy and lying to him about how well he was doing.

 

By some people's logic Ruiz would be Joshua's best opponent because he beat him more convincingly...

And Rahman would be Lewis best opponent also... no.

Ruiz simply caught AJ on the night. 9/10 Joshua UD's Ruiz.

Joshua's best opponents -

1. Usyk
2. Wlad
3. Povetkin
4. Ruiz
5. Whyte/Parker.

Usyk obviously the best, close 2nd being Wlad.

It think Joshua is obviously convinced it was his tactics that lost him the last fight. I think it's a reasonable enough though process as he couldn't have gotten his tactics more wrong.

However, Usyk is just an amazing fighter, and is better than AJ. Simple as.

Joshua can definitely win though. We'll see what happens the first time Joshua lands a massive power punch.