was Joshua just a belt holder or was he real deal

Povetkin was what he was: a shot to pieces old name midget. Matchrooms MO is to cherry pick names for their house fighters when the shot:name exchange is at its absolute peak.

What matchroom realised early is they can sell a ripe NAME to a casual fan regardless of the state of the boxer in the ring. Hence we saw shot old povetkin shot old pulev shot old takam shot old retired VLADD and the same formula being used for whyteleafe shot old Lucas Browne shot old Marius WACHÉ shot old delboy chisora etc.

Same with that little runt Connor BENNE in against shot old Chris algieri and whoever else they fed to him, shot old weight drained contractually dehydrated young chris Eubank junior but for the grace of god.

“Name value is everything koogs, you leave the rest to me, I can sell these plums a carrot and tell them it’s a stick of rock with Essex written through it!”

 

Klitschko should have been DQ'd that fight. The amount of clinching he was allowed to get away with was unbelievable.

Re-watched it again recently and forgot just how bad it was. Dreadful.

 

You're good mate

 

Same with every one of his fights though. Crap era.

 

True enough. Feel that one was particularly bad though, almost makes Okolie look entertaining.

 

Fury has become an absolute bellend , but lets have it right

Hearn and AJ made noise about dropping the WBO when there was talk that Usyk wasn't interested in a rematch clause (his right as a mando)

Knighthood denied

 

He was legit, he unified, defended his belts against a number of top contenders, he was more than just a belt holder however history wont be kind to him. These should be his prime years but mentally he is shot to pieces and his stock will only continue to plummet, its a shame, I use to be a fan when he was on his seek and destroy period of his career, it will take near on a miracle for him to get his edge back.

 

Matchroom do frequently miscalculate though: they thought Usyk was "shot" or at least on the decline post-Chisora and got schooled twice. They thought Chisora was on the slide for both Whyte fights and the first Parker fight, when he would go on to have many of his best wins and performances and was consistently the victim of Matchroom's officiating. They thought they were getting Povetkin at the right time for Whyte when the old man still had something left. They probably "reasoned" that even in his prime Povetkin wouldn't have had an easy time with Whyte because prime Povetkin had a pitched battle with Takam, who most of the evidence suggests was inferior to Whyte (Parker, Joshua, Chisora).

 

Joshua's legacy fight was 1 June 2019 in New York and that is the fight people will always remember when judging how good he was.

That was the day Mr Hearn's words began to mean less than Mr Kim Dung from North Korea and Mr John Fury when he claimed to be the hardest 50 year old on the planet.

 

Joshua's beaten these fighters, all with A-side and home advantage:

41 Wlad
39 Povetkin
27 Whyte
30 Ruiz 2
26 Parker
39 Pulev
36 Takam
29 Franklin
30 Breazeale

Joshua's lost to these fighters, all with A-side and usually home advantage:

34 Usyk 1
35 Usyk 2
29 Ruiz 1

Barring early fights against Kevin, Martin and Molina, it's fair to say that Joshua has never looked spectacular. He has a 50% KO ratio against his top 12 opponents and never stopped any of them before round 7. He was the clear favourite in all but one of his 28 fights (Usyk 2). He showed more vulnerability against Ruiz 1 than 40 Arreola or 43 Ortiz and was generally less competitive against Usyk than Chisora. Knowing what we know now, he would have been the underdog vs Fury and Wilder in 2019 and perhaps Ortiz in 2017.

All that being said, if we just consider the Klitschko and post-Klitschko eras, Joshua's record on paper is in the top 25% of titlists. So he's a strong titlist (at least with A-side advantage), albeit a vulnerable one.

 

If Joshua hadn't fought Usyk he'd have got far more abuse on here than Fury has, that's for sure.

 

I’m not sure about that, AJ isn’t a trash talker unlike that idiot Fury.

 

He wouldn't have because Usyk wasn't that well-known by the casuals at that time. If you mean by boxing fans, then I still disagree but I agree that he doesn't get enough credit for fighting Usyk when he didn't have to.