Anthony Joshua would have knocked out Mike Tyson: Larry Holmes

LOL@ you telling people (correct for once in your life) not to get carried away with Joshua, he's too new and we need to see more etc. Now after one sub par showing you are agreeing he is peak and will not improve. At this career stage? Only a flogging will see him not improve, maybe.

 

This is exactly why you proceed cautiously when comparing an active fighter to the greats of the past.

It also highlights the absurdity of all these predictions that one all time great would put another away in the first round.

Now I am going to issue a further caution to people not to be too hard on Joshua.

Even the greatest heavyweights have had these sort of moments earlyish in the game.

 

Joshua has no chance against Tyson or any skilled counter puncher or a fighter with speed and good reflexes. He leaves himself too wide open. I'm cringing as I'm watching him fight Takam right now. It's not even just things he does once or twice, its stuff he's doing repeatedly which tells me its a habit.

Not that good of a fighter.

 

Pure Comedy,

AJ is what, 28 or so years old and he started boxing late ?

I repeat, what you see is what you get, he is at his peak, he might try to address some issues but the moment the going gets rough he will fall right back into his old self.

Last night proved my point........he is even regressing in regards to stamina... he is more open than a barn door.......insert Tyson, Lewis or Bowe last night and they would have pulverized Takam in very short order.


Wilder, for all his short comings, has a huge gas tank, if he keeps AJ at bay for 4-5 rounds staying behind the jab a la Stiverne and unloads the right when AJ's breaths like a Locomotive, arms hanging down .....AJ is down for the count.

 

There is nothing wrong or absurd about this statement.

"What you see with AJ now is what you get, he is at his peek, he will not improve plus you cannot train a chin.

Mark my words, he is a KO waiting to happen."

You can't train a chin. He possibly is as good as he is going to get. He possibly cannot improve. Why wouldn't he be a knockout waiting to happen? Nothing absurd.

He will look better against lesser opponents but he has found his level now. That cannot be disputed.

Takam gave Povetkin and Parker all they could handle, so that's the level Takam is at. It is a good level. And he was somehow sold short.

Somehow the overwhelming view was that because Joshua beat a 17 month inactive 41 year old former champion (who was coming off a loss) this made Joshua a stand alone talent of these times. and that Takam was some kind of overmatched human sacrifice by comparison.

But what this fight showed was that so far Joshua is no further forward than Parker or Wilder. To my mind there is no champion right now.

 

^

Agreed, there is no clear stand out Heavyweight right now and the future looks bleak too.

 

So how good is Joshua?

He is pretty good.

I don't think that I need to sell anybody on his firepower, so it was always a question of whether he ticked certain boxes.

The Wlad fight suggested to me that there were no insurmountable issues with his stamina, and that he carried his power late.

He also came off the deck to win, which we have to give him some credit for.

I also think that this version of Wlad would have beaten either Wilder or Parker, had they been substituted in.

The fly in the ointment is his chin, which I do see problems with.

Even so, I would call him the standout at the moment.

Fury is finished, there are much bigger issues with Wilder, and Parker is simply not on the same level as the others.

 

I think Joshua is a bit better than Bruno, but not by much.
Bruno might have actually been a better boxer but Joshua is cool and determined in the face of danger. Bruno tended to crumble a bit mentality.

Joshua is horribly overrated if you buy into any of the hype around him. But he's pretty good. I expect him to beat a few more contenders, lose a couple. He ought to improve some more too, but maybe not by much.

 

He's a good puncher but he had trouble putting away Wladimir Klitschko. An OLD Wladimir Klitschko, at that.
Joshua hit Wlad a huge uppercut and Wlad remain conscious.

I've heard Klitschko has a weak chin. Very weak by ATG standards.
So how great is Joshua's power ?

 

I think there are enough suckers out there to make them believe Joshua Is as good as Joe Louis. He will always look spectacular against lesser men. And it's only hardcore boxing aficionados that will ever know the difference.

75,000 bought tickets in one hour to watch a routine Joshua fight. It was not even a unification. The vast majority of mainstream fans don't care. They just want King Kong.

If Wilder, Parker and Joshua never meet nobody will ever know that there Probably isn't much between them.

 

AJ has no jab.
That's an issue. Always has been.

 

He's not really needed or shown much interest in developing a jab so far. He seems content on relying on fast powerful crosses, hooks and uppercuts. Things might change if the quality and resilience of opponents improves but I can't see it until AFTER he suffers a loss.

 

I think that what separates them at this point, is that Wladamir Klitschko was still somebody.

I actually think that he was still better than Wilder or Parker.

I am prepared to call Joshua the front runner at this point.

Joshua can choose his own fate now.

He can fight setups like Wilder and Parker, or he can go after legitimate contenders, like Waldamir Klitschko did.

I hope he chooses the latter.

 

What legitimate contenders are there that stand out at the moment?

 

Wladamir Klitschko is a shrewd operator, who knows how to frustrate opponents.

He had not been stopped in a long time.

Power is one of the most overrated variables in boxing, but you don't need to see somebody in against the best opposition, to know that they have power.

It becomes apparent very early on.