Just a reminder: Joshua saved us from a moribund heavyweight division and deserves credit

I like Joshua. Yes, he has a lot of flaws. Yes, he is way over hyped, and yes, he comes across as bland as he has been trained by PR people to within an inch of his life, but, he does what we should all want from a fighter; fights the best opposition he can. He has tried to fight Fury and Wilder. You can't force people to get into the ring with you. Outside of them he has fought some of the best contenders around. It's not his fault the division isn't stacked.

 

Wilder, Fury, Ruiz, and Ruiz owe AJ a percentage of their career earnings. Without AJ generating the money he did in the UK there is no $20-30 million purses for Fury and Wilder to fight each other. Without AJ, Ortiz doesn’t get $7 million in the rematch. Andy Ruiz doesn’t get almost $20 million combined in his two fights with AJ. I wasn’t a fan of him early on but that changed when he accepted defeat to Ruiz and made no excuses. Love him or hate him he brought big money to this era of HWs

 

Ain't that the truth, it's as if some people have forgotten how messed up this sport is with mandatories being ducked or even when they face mandatories the quality of the mandatories has been down right awful. Yes champions should face mandatories but not all do, especially when they've been the quality of most of AJ's mandatories.

Say what you will about AJ he fought consistently good opposition and did so from a very early stage of his career, always being tested, none of this padding the record for 20 plus fights. Even after cherry picking Martin to win a title what did he do next, he fought Wlad, which was so unbelievable at the time people refused to believe it was real and when it got postponed said it was clear AJ was ducking Wlad which has been an accusation laid at AJ by hater for pretty much everyone decent he's fought, he's ducking Parker, he's ducking Povetkin, he's ducking Pulev, he's ducking Usyk but he fought them all and tried to sign the ones that didn't fight him in Wilder and Fury.

Some bitter people in this thread seem to have forgotten how bad the heavyweight division was before he came along and breathed new life into it. Without him it would probably be Wilder in the US fighting Kownacki or Martin. Maybe he would be unified WBC and IBF champion as Haymon tried to make that instead of Martin/AJ. Parker may still be WBO champion or maybe lost the belt to Whyte but then without AJ to boost his profile Whyte might just be a struggling contender unable to secure fights or maybe he inhabits the vacuum AJ left and is the British hope. WBA belt could be held by anyone, maybe a comeback Fury has it, maybe Ortiz or a shot Povetkin some how still has it. The division would be a mess with nobody really trying to unify because there is no financial incentive to unify without a cash cow to make it financially worth while to risk it. No big stadium fights, no PPV events, nobody other than the most hardcore boxing fans even keeping track of the division. Maybe Usyk never even bother moving up in weight and is still unified cruiserweight champion because the money is better at cruiser as champion.

 

Aj may not be and atg and if you put him against others like Lewis or vitali or a prime wlad he would have lost but I'm sure he would have taken the fight.

He has fought everyone that people wanted him to fight, win or loss I don't think he could have had a better resume it is bad people calling him a fraud he has not sat on his belt fighting bums. He would have more money now if he fought nobodies like wilder has made a career out of.

Fury was a laughing stock when he was uppercutting himself and in his earlier career the posts on here were brilliant calling him a but and now the same people are calling him the best h2h heavyweight in history.

Let's just appreciate AJ for the fights he had and will have going forward. Not everyone is Ali or calzaghe or maywether or lewis

 

No he didnt. Eddie Hearn saved HW boxing not his cash cow.

If AJ wasnt there we would have Dillian Whyte pretending to be humble Instead.

AJ attracted casual football fans to boxing that Is all.

 

It wouldn't be Whyte, it might have been Joyce who got the 2012 team GB spot for the London Olympics as he won the ABA's that year and the year before. If Joyce wins or is gifted the Olympic gold then he goes onto become the big British hope.

 

I agree with your points on Joshua, but you lose credibility when you call Wilder a fraud. No one at world class level is a fraud. A fraud would be someone touted as world class who lack the talent or dedication to make it. And even then I think fans should think better of prizefighters than to call them frauds.

Maybe grow up a little.

 

Yeah and those fighters deserve pelters, they deserve criticism and scorn.

But that doesn't mean because others don't do what's expected I should praise somebody for doing what is expected.

 

I give AJ credit in the Usyk fight, he didn't fight the way he should have which would have been very boring and a bad fight. He tried to box Usyk which made for a very entertaining fight

 

Is it not more expected these days that fighters duck when they get the chance? Because could have easily done that.

 

The virtue signalling following the defeat to Usyk has been hilarious from some people.

Everyone knows that Joshua is a very good boxer, but he's been overrated for a long time. Much of the credit for that has to be attributed to Sky and Matchroom, who have plebs thinking that the guy has fought a bunch of killers, when in reality Usyk was only his second 50-50 bout. The guy can't travel and needs everything on his doorstep.

It was a beautiful thing to see him get outclassed by an actual top class boxer. That's the difference between a true top heavyweight and a "top 10", which much of the fanboys cling on to, like Pudding Pulev.

 

See, I'll give Whyte credit for the list of fighters he as fought, some were risks he didn't have to take.

AJ has mandatory challengers, if they are called then he either has a choice.. either fight them or lose a belt. He don't want to lose a belt so he has no choice, these are not CHOICES, it isn't as if AJ sits there and ASKS for the toughest challenges.

Let's take Andy Ruiz, Hearn let it slip on his Boxig Social interview yesterday talking about this defeat being easier to accept.. he basically said

"Miller popped, Ruiz was a late replacement, we thought Ruiz was an EASY fight and we would move on, so we took it and we were shocked, it was a real struggle to come to terms with it"

That's basically what Hearn said, so when he reels of lists of "hard fights", what he means is what AJ struggled in, not what was SEEN as a hard fight before hand.


Tell me fighters that AJ has fought that are young, hungry and in their prime or were just in their prime?

Maybe Parker? Ruiz? Usyk?

Boring negative fight with Parker, lot to Ruiz, beat a morbidly obese Ruiz over the distance in a rematch and lost to Usyk.

This idea AJ has fought all comers, the best available and actually insists on it is complete nonsense.

 

100% this.

**** all that "Seriously THANK YOU AJ" ****. I don't have to fanboy some fighter because most people do. AJ is FORCED to face a challenger in Usyk and it's called "stepping up to face the best opponent, ducking no one"? AJ doesn't ever manage to have a fight with the other top two threats in the division and it's called "best resume by a mile, fighting all challengers, ducking no one!"

He's gifted a gold medal and from day 1 the careful matchmaking and overrating began. AJ has been given enough "credit" for a few lifetimes, and far more already than he will ever deserve.

Ordinary boxing fans are tired of hearing all the matchroom propaganda trickle down into every thread about HW's. I'd rather have one tenth the hype in the division if it meant there were less know nothing fools pretending to be boxing fans.