Has Pulev any chance to defeat Joshua ?

Try the opening punch in which he visibly stunned Wlad. For whatever reason, machismo, whatever, he subsequently abandoned it. But when he used it, it worked for him.

A lot of people are kidding themselves on this thread that Joshua is a lot better than he has demonstrated.

 

Pulev didn't abandon the jab, 64 of his 110 punches were jabs, Wlad simply took away Pulev's jab. After Pulev landed that hard jab it didn't take long for Wlad to adjust.

The follow up jabs from Pulev started falling short because Wlad got on his toes. He bounced and danced out of reach looking for opportunities making Pulev fall short with the jab and then would jump in, trying to land which he did with great success. Look at the knock downs, Wlad is leaping in with the left hook, jumping in with the right hand. Pulev didn't have the footwork to step back quickly enough to create space to counter Wlad jumping in and so was forced to clinch.

Then the 3rd round Wlad completely took Pulev's jab away, Pulev only landed 8% of his jabs in the 3rd and 4th rounds. By using his right hand to parry Pulev's left jab on the way in, Wlad completely took away Pulev's one weapon and then it was just a matter of time.

I will add Joshua's jab is inferior to Pulev's from what I've seen. Out jabbing Breazeale is pretty easy, he has no jab to speak of whatsoever, doing the same to Pulev would be far harder. But then he doesn't have to, he has so many other ways to win and as Wlad showed it can be even more effective to just take away his jab rather than matching jabs with him, because once Pulev's one weapon is taken away he's pretty much defenceless.

 

Wlad knocked his confidence out of him. When a boxer loses confidence he becomes gun shy, cannot pull the trigger anymore and loses those few tenths of a second (in reflexes) that make the difference between knocking someone out or getting knocked out.

 

He didn't abandoned it. Wlad basically groped , wrestled and bear hugged him to death to negate it.

Watch that fight back. 80% of the rounds is Wlad illegally grappling Pulev all around the ring. He exploited Pulevs laziness adjusting after the breaks to cold kock with with hooks.

Wlad could not out box Pulev. He could only spoil and look to land a bomb.

He also had Pulev standing on 6 inches of memory foam which would explain why Pulev was unable to use any movement .

 

Wlad is not a technical boxer. He couldn't out box Pulev. Much like how Tyson wasn't able to cleanly out box Botha. Both needed knockouts to win. Wlad would have hell with Pulev in a fairly officiated fight on a normal canvas.

Tyson was a shot shell of himself. Wlad is in the prime of his career.

 

Pulev would be a very hard fight for Joshua. He's being ignored for a reason.

 

You're a biased idiot. Wlad has been fighting professionally for almost 20 years and is 40 years old. He's clearly not in his fighting prime.

 

He wasn't 40 when he fought Pulev dummy . And don't even attempt to claim he was past it back then. People were saying no HW in history could have blocked that left hookatsch

 

Vlad easily out boxed Joshua in sparring. Question is how much has Joshua learned and how much has age hurt Vlad. Vlad will knock Fury out in the rematch................would also knock Joshua out as well as Wilder...............