Joshua haters: who should the man have fought?

I seem to recall that when the Miller fight fell through, Ortizn't was offered somewhere in the region of 6-7 million to fight AJ and Ortizn't and his team turned it down. Ortizn't by all account protested his teams decision but, he never directly tried to push for the fight with EH and Matchroom at any point afterwards.

 

It's really not Joshua's fault he came along during a weak era.
He might not be the best of this era but I agree that he's faced some decent opposition, relative to the era.
It's not his fault 39 and 41 year olds were still hanging around the rankings.

 

By that token people should feel the same about Fury now. The hype he is getting currently is something else. Talked about as the best ever and whatnot.

 

Yes, but Fury has been around for years and probably won't be around for many more years. The hype is over-the-top, of course.

 

AJ has been in the top four for several years and has a decent resume. Coming into his last fight, he had the best resume of any current HW and had beaten every man he had faced.

If he beats Usyk in the rematch (50/50), and then beats Wilder (likely) and Fury (unlikely), he would be in the general vicinity of Lewis, careerwise.

If he loses to Usyk, then he's still had a decent career, finishing in the top ten of the last quarter century, and making a shitload of money.

Not sure where all the hate is coming from.

 

Quite so.

Don't make me think less of him, though. I think his schtick is tired and has started to get annoying, but he is a truly quality fighter with high boxing iq as well as courage, confidence and a strong will to win. I think it's genuinely frustrating that he's faced so few quality opponents, but it's not all his fault and I believe he has a genuine wish to face the winner of Usyk-Joshua and will.

 

1. Breazeale and Molina were good enough for AJ's title defence streak, why not Wilder's?

2. Washington and Duhaupas KO'd Helenius, Chisora and Whyte didn't. Years later Helenius is a top contender with the WBA after smashing Kownacki twice. Washington KO'd Forrest in 2, who in his next fight went the 8 round distance with Michael Hunter. Duhaupas beat Charr, who beat Ustinov, Johnson and Leapai

3. Szpilka beat a post-prime but still decent former cruiserweight champ Adamek and Wach, who years later won several rounds over 10 against Whyte

4. Stiverne beat top 10 ranked Arreola twice, both times more comfortably than the anthropometrically similar Andy Ruiz beat the 40 year old, 18 months retired, coming off a loss version of Arreola (the same Arreola who Whyte talked about fighting after that). A badly washed up, obese, inactive, post-Wilder 2 Stiverne also went to the 6th round with Joe Joyce. Wilder beat Arreola 5 years prior to when Ruiz fought him, with a broken right hand and torn bicep for more than half of the fight. Stiverne was ranked 3rd when Wilder beat him 119-108

5. 5th ranked Ortiz KO'd 6th ranked Jennings in 7, who'd beaten top 9 ranked Mike Perez. He'd KO'd a washed Thompson in 6 (who Pulev and Takam lost several rounds to at home) and pitched a shut out against Scott, who'd beaten Thompson, Leapai and was robbed with a draw against Glazkov

6. Wilder fought lineal champion Fury three times. While Fury was at a disadvantage first time round in terms of conditioning, he was still a top 1-3 HW in every bout. Wilder didn't have to give Fury (the No.1 HW in the sport) a rematch or fight him a third time, yet he did

Wilder's already faced a better opponent than AJ and the idea that Andy Ruiz is among "the best in the sport" is absurd. He exposed AJ yes and is thus overranked but he was himself exposed against washed up Liakhovich (who Wilder seizure-KO'd in less than 2 minutes) washed up Kevin Johnson and washed up Arreola. We've already seen how Wilder-Ruiz goes with Wilder's fights against Stiverne.

If Wilder takes the Bryan fight off the back of two crushing defeats to Fury and fighting five top 5 ranked opponents in his last 6 fights, no one reasonable could have a problem with that. Bryan is a better opponent than either Wlad or Lewis fought in their next two fights on their comebacks to defeats against Sanders and McCall. If Wilder fights another Bryan after that, there would be a problem. But I highly doubt he's going to do that; he'll be wanting to fight Ruiz or AJ and you'll have to give him credit when he goes on to fight them.

If you believe that Wilder was offered $100 million to fight AJ on favourable terms but he was scared of AJ so he didn't take it then you don't have much brainpower. It's just not a plausible narrative, especially considering he fought a No.1 ranked Fury, even after getting smashed in the rematch. Wilder has also shown far more courage in the ring than AJ ever has, it's not even debatable.

 

Which is a fair point but and confirms ortiz was offered the fight. He wasn't lowballed and the reason the fight didn't happen was nothing to do with AJ or Hearn.

It's no surprise Hearn took the deal off the table as ortiz manager stupidly decided to go public calling the offer lowball.

If he would of have just rejected the offer and not said anything public once he went back to Hearn the fight would have happened.

 

All this is irrelevant. It was a mandated fight by the WBA, winner being mandatory to Fury v Klitschko. Ortiz chose a different path for himself, and unwittingly made Joshua v Klistchko for WBA a possibility.
Please don’t argue that Joshua was ducking Ortiz by fighting Klitschko.

This too is irrelevant. Ortiz failed a drug test for a masking agent. He serves a ban. Therefore, he isn't available to fight, and the WBA removed his mandatory position, and he lost his IBF ranking. And Povetkin was cleared after the fact.
Try to stay on topic.

You are reaching here.
Joshua fought for the title in his 16th fight. Joshua massively jumped the queue to get that title shot, and was obliged to fight two defences against PBC opponents after beating Martin. Most people were happy with Breazeale. Personally, I wasn't happy about the Molina fight, but I don’t know if there better available PBC fighters? For me when you become a champion the training wheels come off. But he was contracted, so it's a question of who he was avoiding on the PBC roster.
Therefore, your argument boils down to Joshua shouldn't have tried to win the IBF title, instead he should have worked toward a show down with Luis Ortiz?

Nice conspiracy theory, but unless you can back it up, it’s pure conjecture.
Again, try to process this.
By not fighting Ustinov, Ortiz couldn’t block Joshua v Klitschko. But, the WBA still made Ortiz the mandatory to Joshua. Great for Ortiz! The problem is there is a sequence of defences. Joshua had to fight an IBF mandatory (i.e Pulev). So, Ortiz chose to jump across to fight Wilder, again no complaints from me, he wants his fastest route to the title. BUT the problem you have is he failed a drugs test.

Here’s some conjecture of my own, had Ortiz waited, not only would he have fought Joshua for the WBA title instead of Povetkin. He more than likely would have been the IBF mandatory instead of Takam. He was actually one place above Takam in the IBF, but the fool popped for PEDs when trying to make a fight against Wilder, and fixed himself on that route.
Then throw in rejecting the Joshua offer at MSG, and it’s clear Ortiz (and his management) was his own worst enemy.

Your argument boils down to this:
1) Joshua should not have fought for the IBF title and two fights against PBC opposition. Instead, he should have fought Ortiz somewhere between fights 16 and 18 for no title.
2) Joshua should not have fought Klitschko for the WBA title. Instead, he should have fought a voluntary defence of his IBF against Ortiz.
3) Joshua should not have fought his IBF mandatory against Pulev. Instead, he should have dropped the IBF title, and fought a WBA defence against Ortiz.

Does that seem like a reasonable expectation to you?

 

I bet Ortiz would have loved some gift officiating against Wilder in fights 1 and 2
Really makes his decision to go to the PBC to become a resume booster look even worse, when you think about it

 

That's a fair comment. But in contrast, boxing was on its arse. The division was dying. Joshua's hype was the tide that lifted all boats.
But there will always be salty fans. And as the tide fell away we are seeing the piles of salt dried out by the harsh burning light of "objectivity", now left scattered across the sandy shores of fan-boyism and anti-Joshua rhetoric. Furthermore, (I should have given up sooner on this analogy......you get the point! )

 

Well, I was referring to the very excessive hype he got at the beginning of his career, being a possible source of the "hate" he gets.

 

AJ fought fought the top guys at HW he can and attempted to make the Wilder, Fury and Ortiz fights but they didn't want the smoke.

During that time Aaj has fought much better fighters than Wilder and Ortiz in Wlad, Whyte, Povetkin and Parker.

 

It's useless trying to make a case for Joshua being great here lmao.

Theres always something wrong with Joshua, like he fights aged fighters (better than fighting once every 2 years, wonder who does that though? Not Fury or Wilder right? )

Or how he loses to fighters (which fighters are totally not suppose take that chance in the first place, which clearly Fury and Wilder are doing ,right? )