Anthony Joshua's path forward?

Joshua and Fury for bragging rights and lots of money then both retire.

 

Um. . .respectfully. . .if you count taking on an MMA fighter or his match with Robert Freaking Helenius as "fights" than you and I have very different views of what constitutes professional boxing. If you review AJ's record, Wikipedia is a good resources, you will see that as HW champion AJ would defend the belts just once a year with regularity. This denied rising young fighters the ability to challenge for the HW belts, because AJ simply refused to fight on a regular basis. All too often he is a once-a-year wonder, and 2025 will be another of those years. A "boxer" who fights as often as Christmas comes, give me a break. . .

 

The rebuilding strategy failed as they played it safe after Usyk (Usyk also was not considered a dangerous fight at the time), dodged Wilder and Fury openly to rack up wins then expected to beat Dubious, who was considered a glass cannon, KO'd by Usyk of all people.

Then their backup was just to do the cashout series with Fury. This seems to have failed for now too after Fury lost twice and doesn't want to continue.

They also show little urgency to fight Dubious again, so probably they'll play it safe and try to get another title shot against a less dangerous opponent. Probably they were hoping Parker was going to beat Dubious for them.

 

Fury, Wilder, Ruiz rubber.

His future is the past.

 

A non puncher like Jared Anderson would have been perfect except Bakole already knocked him out. So if they do cash him out it probably should be against somebody that can replace him like Wardley or something like that. They will ultimately schedule Joshua vs somebody extremely dangerous then pay them step aside money so Joshua can fight Luis Ortiz in a bout titled "Unfinished Business"

 

Joshua also always had rematch clauses for his once a year defences, so the rising young fighters were never ever going to get a look in.

 

Joshua is a stupid privileged guy, who enjoys numerous opportunities, there is no step forward for him, media attention is important to him...

 

Stupid privileged multi millionaire former HW belt holder.

What have you achieved that comes close?

 

that’s not a half bad idea actually.

 

Yes. that said, I don’t think he can win a belt anymore unless something weird happens. What’s there left for him but a cash out against Fury or Chisora? Or both cash outs? (zero chance Chisora wouldn’t stick around for 51 if it was a fight with AJ in the UK, way too much money available).

do that, then retire. I’m sure DAZN would welcome him in something like a Chris Mannix role for bigger fights if he wanted it.

 

Let's verify this claim, shall we? AJ won the IBF belt in 2016, defended it once the same year, so he fought twice. 2017 - two fights - Klitschko and Takam. 2018 - great year for AJ, fought twice, beating best available 2 guys in Parker and Povetkin. In 2019 he was beat by Ruiz and then he rematched him - so again fought twice. He only defended once in 2020 but we all know why - Covid. He signed the contract for 2 Fury fights in 2021, but that went in the drain when Wilder won the arbitration, so he fought Usyk and lost. On top of that, he fought all his mandatories - Takam in 2017 (was supposed to be Pulev), Povetkin in 2018, Pulev in 2020 and Usyk in 2021. The claim is therefore false.

 

So we don't count a fight with Ngannou as a fight? Cool, then Fury didn't fight for 17 months between Chisora III and Usyk I. Helenius was a late replacement a week before the scheduled fight, so it was pretty understandable. There was no Turki back then to pay 3 million to Bakole.

 

AJ is likely to fight Joe Parker in a world title fight next whereas Usyk will face Dubois.