Historical Comparison of Joshua rebounding like he did ..

Great comparison with the Norris-Brown fights from 1994. Man, wasn't that La Revancha card the best! All 5 of those bouts were rematches of world title bouts between their division's best.

Sorry, got distracted with nostalgia from 25 years ago...

 

I agreed with your post until you said he beats Wilder

 

I like the script here.

Modern superheavyweight superman gets destroyed by fat little contender, then reinvents old school training methods to win back his crown!

 

I'll throw another in, he didn't win the rematch but near enough. Nigel Benn v Eubank. He didn't get hammered in the first fight but from the mid fight on he never looked like winning. But Benn changed his fighting teck and became more a boxer /puncher. It was this that almost won him revenge.
I still think he shoulda gottan the decision but that's life..

 

What methods were that?

He obviously must have done more cardio than weight lifting compared to before, but haven't really seen anything of his training so I'd be interested to hear about it.

 

It was Andy ‘6 months of partying and eating’ Ruiz he beat. Still good preparation by Joshua especially being able to get rid of all that muscles in just a few months.

 

That's it

Thats the difference

Fighters of yesteryear were more focused on coniditioning and boxing training like sparring and heavybag work. Fighters today train more like football players, weightlifting and doing sprints more often

Beyond that they're pretty much the same. Fighters today show off for the camera more, have shorter camps and get fatter off season knowing that day before weigh ins allow for massive descents in weight plus the fact that most only fight 1-2 times a year, causing massive offseasons compared to the days of 4-6 fights a year averages. Fighters back then had to stay near if not in prime shape year round. Fighters nowadays dont and deteriorate faster and have weaker conditioning due to this.

Fighters back then preferred to develop explosive force via medicine balls, calisthenics and band tension rather than weights. Different method same results, just that old fighters weren't obsessed with it. You could argue that explosive force training is more valuable under 12 rounds though. It's definitely more valuable for 4 round amateur fights, which makes sense why fighters train like this since every person has to have at least 50 amateur fights nowadays, too much emphasis placed on it.

 

The muscle building is good vs muscle builders & the juicers but years ago even Heavyweights trained to make a weight - Championship fighters had to be prepared to fight 15 hard rounds.

Ruiz admitted he was not in condition to throw punches and lacked stamina to pick up pace and get inside. Joshua said he went back to the 70's and trained cardio and deserved the win. Joshua now has the title back and can look good next time.

From looking at the picture Ruiz was a head smaller than Joshua so maybe 6'ft or less- still if he was in better condition he could have closed the gap and threw punches in bunches which was what won it for him last time.

Guys are giants today and better than the giants of the past because of the amateur super-heavyweight division but size does not help chins- condition helps everything-mind-body-ability to recover-stamina & confidence and will to win.

Fury got himself in excellent shape for Wilder (after being off for so long) Wilder looks like the better fight now but I am not certain that Wilder can take Joshua's power if he boxes and explodes (Vlad Klitschko style) when opportunity presents itself.

If Wilder lands first fight could end but lets not forget Joshua has 2 hands as well. Wilder-Joshua-Fury are well conditioned fighter- Joshua must stay away from the weights for the most part.

Some good Big and small heavyweights coming up from the amateurs and the top 3 is very interesting right now once again.

The Povetkin-Hunter-Chisora- Pulev- Whytes - etc. should fight off each other while the top 3 fights it out and lets see where the chips fall. The cheaters have no choice but to fight fair.

The younger guys are a year or 2 away from a title shot but some great talent.

From history- conditioning is better than size (weight) but with the extra drug testing technique the modern fighter may have no other option than to take a page from the past -1940's to the 1970's

 

Where do you get this shorter camps and blowing up in weight from? That seems to be very individual and always has been. If anything camps was shorter back when fighters had lots more fights. Two month camps aren't possible when you fight once a month. And there have been plenty of champs in the past who didn't take their training seriously enough - that's probably more individual than it is "then" vs "now".

And roadwork, calisthenics, medicine balls etc are still being used today. Weights and intervals have come into it more, but that doesn't mean that old stuff isn't done anymore.

And how much conditioning you do compared to strength is individual, and also differ a lot depending on what opponent you face. Canelo felt he wanted to be leaner for the second GGG fight than he was in the first, but packed on muscle for Kovalev.

Depending on who he's facing next, AJ might come in with more muscle again. Last night was about lots of movement, but that won't always be the case.

 

So his excuses are fact now?

Right after the weigh in it sounded differently:

“I was already the same weight as the last fight this morning,” Ruiz explained. “I had to wait until almost 5 p.m. to get on the scale, so I already had my breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also weighed in with my sombrero and pants on, so that’s why I came in so heavy.

“It was a psychological thing as well.”

Ruiz suggested that he wanted to keep the Joshua camp guessing when it came to his weight and feels that he was successful in doing so with Friday’s weigh-in.

https://www.dazn.com/en-US/news/box...hony-joshua-rematch/85fa6uyox03s173zlv3ykpijh


And he was hardly even effing winded after the fight, so I don't see how his stamina let him down.

 

No, it is objective fact. Rocky Marciano spent 6 months in camp for Charles, compare this with Joe Frazier who said he spent 3 months in camp for Manilla which was, by his admission, the longest he'd been in. Mayweather trained 12 months for Pac iirc. Jeffries spent much longer than 3 months training for Johnson. Fighters today get horribly fat off-season. Just look at Spence, Broner, Gervonta, just recently Ruiz, I've heard that Spence goes up to 180lbs off-season! Compare this with Harry Greb, who fought over 40 times in 1919 and didn't weigh over 170 for any single one of them. Fighters today get fatter because they don't need to stay in shape year round due to lack of fights, and they can drop absurd amounts of weight via water cutting.

I never said they didn't take training seriously? Also no, when they had such frequent fights theyd go into camp straight after a fight. Such as how Marciano had a 2 month camp right after Charles 1 leading into Charles 2, combining into an 8 month straight camp. And fighters would be allowed more time to prepare for fights when it was a highly touted fighter back then. The camp never stopped sometimes.

I understand, and weights were used back then! I said it was preferred.

He packed on muscle because he was moving up a weight class and had the option to. But no, conditioning will always be superior to strength in boxing with long distances. If Canelo packed on the muscle he did for Kova against GGG he wouldn't have made weight.

Every night should be about movement for AJ, that's how he looked best. He was arrogant in his power, that's why he packed on muscle and became a more stationary and easily gassing monster instead of a fleet footed and moving boxer. If he ever balloons up to 255 again he is objectively worse, he cannot carry his speed and conditioning in that weight.

Stop buying into the power myth. Being lean and conditioned always trumps a little bit of strength (with relatively no punch power output change for 235lbs Heavyweights who've already reached the point of diminishing returns). Of course you need to fill out your frame with muscle but after that you must hit the road hard and have stamina for days. Boxing is moreso a marathon than a 40yard dash.

Your response was weak and strawmanning.

 

I don't know the details, but he came in at 237, which is about what Jess Willard weighed in good condition.

His stamina had clearly improved a lot.

This is interesting to say the least!

 

The way Joshua changed his style after the loss to come back and win in convincing fashion by out boxing his opponent reminded me of Leonard vs Duran 11.

Leonard, like Joshua, lost the first fight trying to go to war with his opponent and by trying to win with a convincing KO ended up giving Duran/Ruiz the opportunity to fight back. The first Leonard/ Duran and Joshua/Ruiz fights made for far more exciting fights than the resulting re-matches for this reason

Whereas Leonard reverted back to the style he most often used throughout his career for the re-match, Joshua re-invented himself by using a style that he had hardly ever used as a professional.

This left both Duran / Ruiz frustrated and unable to close the gap. They both got outboxed by a change of tactics that they were not prepared for and had no answer to.

 

His """newfound""" (old-school) training methods have led to that conditioning overall disproving the merits of being an overweight 4 rounder who can lift heavy objects but can't box or run long distances. Even amongst an era that has 12 rounds instead of 15. I blame this on the amateur circuit.

The more things change, the more things stay the same. I hope this Sparks a revolution. So yes, I agree with you that it's very interesting