Joshua haters: who should the man have fought?

Yeah bet he was worried at the prospect of facing a guy who was on top against him for 30seconds out of a 7 round fight.

 

I agree that Joshua nearly always had the advantage of being the home fighter, but which of his opponents was hard done by? Personally, I would say that the Takam stoppage was soft. And whilst one of the Usyk cards was too close, Usyk won by deserved UD.

An alternative narrative to this A-side one you are presenting is that Wilder always had Joshua's name in his mouth merely as a way of building his profile, with no intention of fighting him. He would be silent for long periods of time, then as soon as Joshua would sign a fight, up he pops chatting crap, then Wilder would sign multiple fight deals. Wilder would make these crazy demands such as a venue needing to be in place. Then Joshua lined up Wembley, and Wilder still rejected a 100m offer. Wilder openly admitted to trying to freeze Joshua out with the Fury fights...

So, what should Joshua have offered Wilder to get him into the ring?
After defeating Klitschko, there were only two legitimate A-sides in boxing, Canelo and Joshua. Heck, it wasn't Canelo adorning posters in Tokyo in various sports shops, it was Joshua. Add to that, Wilder didn't have the name of a Klitschko, and whilst Wilder's name was arguably bigger than Parker's, Wilder had a distinct lack of PPV success or a track record of large purses. So, why would Wilder's team expect some amazing offer far beyond what Parker was paid?
And regarding Fury and 50-50, Joshua said he was willing to negotiate with the winner of Fury v Wilder 2. Which he did.
Besides:
Did Mayweather give Pacquaio 50-50?
Did Canelo give GGG 50-50?
How much is Plant being paid by Canelo again?
It's very easy for us to say, Joshua should just give Wilder and Fury 50-50 to buy the belt (Lennox Lewis cough cough).

But let's use common sense as you suggest:
Joshua v Klitschko (Unification) - 1.5m PPV buys in UK, another 1.5m PPV buys in the US
Joshua v Takkam (mandatory) - over 1m buys in UK
Joshua v Parker (Unification) - 1.8m PPV buys in UK
Joshua v Povetkin (mandatory) - over 1m buys in UK

This takes us up to Wilder v Fury, which was Wilder's first PPV fight. And Fury promoted the hell out of fight 1.
Wilder v Fury 1. 0.33m buys in US. 0.45m buys in UK.
Wilder v Ortiz2 - 0.25m buys in US.

Please explain using common sense how Wilder and Fury deserved some amazing offer or anything remotely close to 50-50 prior to Fury v Wilder 2.

What your argument is suggesting, is that Joshua should have entered the biggest fight of his life, but taken a pay freeze to buy the belt off Wilder. Is that about right?

 

Well firstly, the fight you are talking about happened in 2015 when Whyte wasn't even ranked in the WBC top 40, and I believe Joshua was already WBC#2.
The Wembley fight would have happened in 2019, with Whyte being not only the WBC#1 but also the WBO#1 and Ring#4. So I think an opening offer of 3.5m by anyone's logic is a duck....

 

People seem to have strong views on how good Ortiz is but his resume doesn't really back up the hype. His ranking seems to be based to a large degree on guesswork.

 

Setting aside the contentious nature of drug testing in boxing, I highly doubt that Ortiz was deadset on fighting short notice *Dave Allen* on the AJ-Molina undercard in 2016. It's far more likely that he preferred to fight AJ for big money and glory (as he did twice against Wilder 1.5 and 3 years later, when officially in his late 30's/early 40's) but Matchroom were protecting their manufactured cash cash from serious threats before the Wlad fight, hence their willingness to sign to fight Breazeale and a post-Wilder Molina off the back of the awful Charles Martin.

You missed out the part in your chain of events when Hearn (who is totally against "drug cheats" of course) signed Ortiz in October 2016: [url]https://www.espn.co.uk/boxing/story/_/id/17744646/heavyweight-luis-ortiz-signs-matchroom-boxing[/url]

It wouldn't be the first time that Hearn signed a fighter in order to protect or advance the interests of another in his stable: we've seen the same situation with Bivol, who was almost robbed on a Matchroom show against relative nonentity Craig Richards after 19 months of inactivity (by far the longest of Bivol's career). We saw the same with Usyk, who had been fighting once a year ever since he signed with Hearn back in 2018 and had to deal with BS scorecards whenever he faced a British opponents, attempting to eliminate him before he could get to AJ. Usyk had been aged out prior to finally getting the AJ fight, with easier mandatories being pursued at every opportunity.

Ortiz signed with Hearn to get the AJ fight but he soon realised this wasn't going to happen any time soon, with fights against Wlad, Pulev and Parker being pursued instead. By the time they got to Ortiz, it would have been late 2018 at the earliest and as an aging fighter dealing with a slippery customer in Hearn, he and his team decided that signing with Haymon offered a more reliable and faster route to a title shot, which is what happened in early 2018.

 

Joshua had his share of old men ( Wlad , Pulev, Povetkin, all 39 or older ) and some easy fights but he at least he has taken some fights vs prime men who are decent with mixed results ( Ruiz, Usyk, Parker ) while other chaps have not. By the way he barely bet Wlad and Povetkin. Solid, but not special.

 

Ortiz was top 5-6 ranked with the Ring for 6 years, he was a well-established top contender [url]https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/ortizs-comparative-wins.672970/[/url]

Even Hearn admits to this day that Ortiz is heavily avoided. Analysis of resumes also depends on one's interpretation. I find his resume more impressive than Whyte's or Parker's, who almost exclusively relied on gifts from officials in their best wins and lost or were made to look poor by inferior opposition.

 

So...
What's your point?
Brighton bomber and Double chin seem to be in agreement that Joshua was contractually oblidged to fight PBC fighters Breazeale and Molina. The next fight was against Klitschko.

So Hearn was protecting Joshua from Ortiz how exactly?

Let's see, Ortiz under Golden Boy instead of fighting Ustinov chose Tony Tucker.
Under Hearn he continued to fight terrible opposition. Granted the WBA sanctioning Joshua v Klitschko was a bit naughty, even so. If he had fought Ustinov they wouldn't have even able to do that.
So he jumps ship, fair enough, but then fails another PED test under Haymon's watch.
And for the majority of tenure under Haymon (Wilder excluded) he has fought terrible opposition.

So let's recap, under Golden boy he didn't push himself with his opponent selection. Under Matchroom he didn't push himself with his opponent selection. And under PBC he isn't pushing himself with his opponent selection.

There is a common theme here...
It begins with O and ends with Z

But you can blame Hearn for all of Ortiz' poor career decisions if you want

 

His best win is probably Bryant Jennings. I don't see how much we can extrapolate given who he has beaten. Had Joshua beaten him critics could question the worth of the win. Bryant Jennings also lost to Oscar Rivas and nobody is arguing Rivas is a threat to the top guys. Was Joshua also ducking Rivas?

 

So Ortiz signed with Hearn because he was desperate for the Joshua fight yet only two years later he officially turned down the Joshua fight.
Makes sense.

 

I don't think many people criticize Joshua for not fighting reasonable opponents. Most people agree that he has faced reasonable and good opposition.
But I think people should stop criticizing Wilder now too. He fought Ortiz twice and Fury three times, when it was evident that both those guys do pose him a significant risk.

 

Rivas beat Jennings by the skin of his teeth in a fight he was losing; a Jennings who wasn't rated in the top 10 as he was when Ortiz beat him far more soundly more than three years prior. Rivas went on to lose to Whyte in a competitive fight and his B-level wins (Rozicki close, Hubeaux wide, washed Abell KO2, Louis SD) are worse than Ortiz's (Hammer shut out, Scott shut out, washed Thompson KO6, Allen KO7, Cojanu KO2). Ortiz did a better job on Jennings, Scott, Thompson, Allen and Cojanu than all of his rival contenders (Rivas, Joyce, Chisora, Pulev, Takam, Parker, Dubois, Ajagba) did. Ortiz never needed gift officiating and I'd argue that all four of Whyte's best wins and three of Parker's best four hinged on officiating. Breazeale, Molina and Martin didn't have resumes to compare with Ortiz's and neither did Andy Ruiz. Pulev's recent form had been awful and he was 13 months inactive. Ortiz's record is really better than anyone AJ faced barring Wlad, Usyk and Povetkin. He was high risk (skills, experience, southpaw, power puncher, never dropped, undefeated, heart, confident) and low reward (unknown, old, no belt, doesn't speak English).

 

His blatant duck of Joshua deserves criticism. It turned out to be moot in the in the end, since Joshua lost to Ruiz, but he of course didn't know that when he turned down 100 mil for the chance to collect all the belts.

 

Nobody turns down $100 million on a "blatant duck".
Turning down $100 million indicates something very strange going on. I don't know why or how or any of the details. What is your theory?