The question - Is Anthony Joshua Overrated ?

I think you sell him a little short but yes he isn't the destroying monster some thought he was..

Personally I think he was more focused on trying to put in a Wilder like performance and had underestimated who he was in with...

He got sloppy and got caught, never recovered nor had a plan "b" other than take a breather like in the Wlad fight which only worked cause Wlad was knackered too..

AJ will have to make some serious changes if they have a rematch, even getting Wlad along to show him the "protect yourself first style" given they seem to have the same issues, not so much as having a bad chin but more not having the ability to focus when you are hurt and push through..


Neither are good at that but Wlad (his team) developed a boring but effective style to combat that..

 

Yes. The so-called best isn't supposed to be clipped by older guys on their way out. Plus his stamina issues.

 

As someone who stated above he looked good compared to Wilder who really cant box at all and was fighting mostly set up fights.
Joshua has tools, a good jab (at least in the Wlad fight it seems to have disappeared), a very tight hook and real two fisted power. However he was not a strong gold medal winner as we know and always seemed chinny and a little stiff. old Wlad, old Povetkin, Parker and Whyte are good wins though. Ruiz is a bad loss, not that Ruiz cant fight he can, and he was a good amateur but he was hand selected by Joshua's team as a sub replacement. Also the optics of losing to an overweight fighter when you look Like Joshua is something late night comedians will make jokes on for years to come. If Joshua never fights again he had a good career but well short of hall of fame level. He comes back and does well we'll see.

 

Perhaps because he went into the ring with a different mindset. He expected a difficult fight against Wlad and half expected that hit and getting hit could be part of the scenario. So he was prepared for that mentally. But Ruiz was supposed to be his coronation fight in the US. So when he got hit by Ruiz it was like "WTF - this is not in the script!" and he panicked. But AJ's problem is not his chin imo. It's that he's so vulnerable to left hooks in particular.

 

Yes, so is Wilder, Fury and a few others.

This is a average era in heavyweight boxing, it's just more competitive than Klitschkos era so it's a little more interesting.

Fury 30 years old, Wilder 33 years old, AJ 29 years old, this lot are not babies and they are not going to get much better either when you look at where they are now, they are not just starting out.

I do believe the main 3 are there for the taking, well AJ just got taken but the other two are there to be beaten but Usyk would be my favourite against all three and I believe Hrgovic will come through and beat all three of those also.

Can you imagine what a 21 year old Tyson, a prime Holyfield or Lewis would have done to this lot? It would be hard to watch the beatings they would have dished out.

 

I still scratch my head how if those three are the top of the heap and they still haven't fought each other.

 

In my opinion it has to be greed, ego and fear.

 

This heavyweight division is all about the muscle and the money. They only want to fight when the money is right and that will most likely be the same with the up and coming heavyweights (Dubois, Joyce, Efe Ajagba, Gorman) Anthony Joshua could have been great and got the experience from taking his time through the ranks and not sniffing out the money. If he used the time he did have then he could have worked on his kinks, I.e. Lack of head movement, stiff legs, robotic footwork, not defending himself properly when on the back foot (Proven in the Ruiz Jr fight)

He really needed that loss to expose his flaws to his team. We all saw these flaws he carries many fights ago but its down to himself and his team to work and improve on these. If he has the rematch with Ruiz Jr and AJ hasn't worked on those weaknesses then he will only have let himself down.

 

He was able to get up off the canvas against Wlad and Whyte but in this fight, he was never really the same. His head seemed to clear at some points but then he got tired very quickly.

Joshua needs to work on stamina because his chin is glass. The shot from Ruiz that hurt him clipped the top of his head. If he took all the shots Ali took he would have been koed about 100 times.

 

Remember the movie Twins with Arnie and Danny Devito? The difference between the Twins and Joshua / Ruiz is that Devito is skinnier.

 

There are lots of videos going round that Joshua suffered a concussion in sparring a week before the fight.

I can believe that actually. Joshua looked sluggish and spaced out from the start, and his punch resistance was terrible.

 

First rule in a crisis situation: cancel the f***ing fight!

 

Don't forget that AJ sent Ruiz to the canvas first so if he can improve his killing instinct and his defence then he will have a chance to beat Ruiz.

 

Definitely overrated but he's still a quality boxer.