Anthony Joshua's demeanor before fight with Ruiz compared to vs Whyte

It’s impossible to deny the difference in demeanour here. I mean, there is a vivid difference. Joshua always had the exact same demeanour before every fight, no matter how huge. On saturday, as this video demonstrates, he was like a different person.

No idea why. Could just be mental weakness, who knows. But it is a worthwhile discussion - it’s not excuses, it’s a reading of body language to get an insight into the Fighters state of mind. That’s a legit part of the game.

On a separate note - wow that fight with Whyte got off to a hellacious start. Such a violent round 1. Joshua’s jab looks WAY better than it did vs Ruiz too. Maybe he just struggles with punching down also? Both guys brought the heat though - great stuff.

 

Well if these are symptoms of brain damage I hope he retires.

 

Describe, specifically, his behavior before every other fight. Not like subjective “always looks more confident,” but actual specific physical behavior.

I bet I can find another fight when he didn’t do that. Like against Whyte he paced around and kept turning his back to the camera. Did he do that in EVERY fight?

 

Pat - please feel free to ignore my posts, as it’s obvious you are diametrically opposed to my viewpoint, and seem driven by a sense of vindication in Joshuas defeat, and a desire to antagonise people in that regard. Any impartial person can see the difference in those two videos without being so pedantic to catalogue each and every nuance.
I aren’t trying to change your opinion, and refuse to rise to the bait you keep hanging out there - so please feel free to spare yourself the hassle.

 

He certainly looks out of sorts. People who want to look for reasons why he lost seem to be either consoling themselves that there was something distracting him or bothering him behind the scenes, whereas others think it could point to some kind of mental weakness which, as we know with Price, could ultimately be worse than just suffering a KO loss. We will know in his next fight I guess.

 

Absolutely. I feel like I was getting flamed by people for wanting to have a discussion about his demeanour, but rather than being a justification for a loss it can actually be something indicative of a much bigger part of the puzzle, and the attributes that are needed to succeed at the elite level.
But he has carried far bigger events with ease in the past, so this certainly seemed notable in its incongruity.

 

If Joshua had won and Ruiz had (allegedly) "looked out of it" before the fight, NO ONE would be mentioning it.
No one would give a ****.
If mentioned at all it would be to credit Joshua for being an intimidator or something.

But because the favourite lost, the golden boy, we're get all this endless anaylsis, and Ruiz is getting not nearly enough credit.

Joshua was beaten up by a guy who exploited all the same AJ flaws we've known about for years.
So stop your bitching.

 

This all reminds me of the internet in 2004 when Wlad lost to Brewster.
We had all this conspiracy/mystery crap back then too.

 

Psychology in boxing is a big part of the game. Mental toughness. Heart. All that stuff people love to talk about.

Watching someone we have seen looking steely and cool in some of the biggest boxing events of all time come out to the ring looking nervous and agitated before taking a heavy loss is a relevant part of the discussion and analysis of the fight.
It’s a notable example because of the shock nature of the defeat, and the fact that as we all know, pretty much all of Joshua’s prior fights have received massive coverage from the build up to the ring walk - we are just more familiar with his demeanour than most boxers.
That’s not conspiracy theorising - it’s just analysis.

 

He's just happy to be one of those hammering in the nails and jumping up and down on the coffin lid of Joshua's career. It will likely pass in time and you know what they say about Karma, it's a real *****, especially when it comes back around.

Just keep putting it in the bank for when Wilder and Fury come unstuck, and they will.

 

I thought AJ's body looked a little different.

 

Joshua's career isn't over.
He just lost a fight.
He can come back.

 

The conspiracy theory is the stories about some big cover-up surrounding panic attacks, mental breakdowns, getting KO'd in sparring.
All of which are still factually unsupported and simply take a lot of credit from Ruiz Jr. who simply went out and won the fight doing exactly what a fighter would need to do to defeat Joshua (considering his known flaws).

Talking about him looking nervous or whatever is fair enough but the only reason we've had about 100 threads on such a thing is because a lot of people cannot accept he lost.