Anthony Joshua's legacy as it stands in 2024

Ruiz has a lot of good attributes but factors that can broadly be defined as "aesthetic" matter.

 

Franklin's a "top guy" now lol. Not even Mitch tries to pull that one.

Despite revisionistic claims to the contrary, Ortiz was a "top guy" if being top 5 ranked and ranked for 6-7 years by Ring/TBRB qualifies you as such. His fight with Ruiz at 43+ with 2 KO defeats was virtually as close by fan consensus as Parker's fight with Ruiz in NZ.

Wilder came closer to beating Fury than anyone else thus far. If Fury beats Usyk, the controversial draw ages even better.

Just as Vitali was a HoF lock despite his limited resume, Wilder's pretty much there. Joshua on the other hand can blow it in his next fight.

 

If you could switch Joshua's record with Fury's (dethroned two long reigning champs, undefeated rather than three losses) you'd do so in a heartbeat. No pro boxer would rather have Joshua's record and legacy.

Froch said "Joshua has no real legacy". I don't entirely agree though. Joshua's legacy is having the most humiliating defeat in boxing history and being the first heavyweight champ with serious credentials to get schooled once and then twice by a cruiserweight.

 

You're contradicting yourself again.

You said that Usyk has the best HW legacy, better than Joshua's, while Joshua had the most "top wins" by far. If that's all true, then Joshua's three losses knocked his record way down implicitly, by your own admission.

So undefeated Fury (who in addition to that list has multiple wins over Wilder and Chisora and beat 2x cruiser champ Cunningham and Joshua's next opponent Ngannou) and Usyk both have vastly better records than Joshua. Chisora also has a better record than Joshua if winning doesn't matter.

On paper Joshua has some impressive accomplishments but so does Wilder. I expect both will make it into the HoF, though Joshua has a chance to muck that up in his next fight.

"You've gone into complete meltdown since"

That's news to me. I take this as projection: you melted down after Joshua lost three times and other results went against you, such as Wallin-Gassiev. Which is why you've barely been seen on the forum in the last few months and sulk about people criticising your silly takes, which are often extremely dishonest, ideological and involve a lot of goalpost-moving.

 

Wallin beat Gassiev: a top 4 fighter and unified titlist in Usyk's cruiser era. Gassiev got huge hype on the forum, including from Mitch and was favoured more than 70-30 oddswise to beat Wallin.

Wallin schooled Breazeale, who according to Mitch was a "solid fringe contender" on a par with Takam.

Mitch rated 2017 Takam below 2016 Charles Martin in 2021.

Wallin is a light puncher but Takam hasn't dropped or stopped any of his 11 best opponents. His best career win is 42+ Tony Thompson and like Malik Scott (who also beat Thompson around that time), Takam got KO'd by Chisora in a competitive fight.