What Is Anthony Joshua's Legacy?

I remember him for beating up the mummy that was left of Klitschko, then several years of having a strange grin while getting knocked down or knocked out by any (semi) serious opposition. In between that some inspirational quotes sprinkled in.

 

Okay champion in a weak era
3rd best of his era behind Usyk and Fury
Best wins were old men Klitschko and Povetkin
More hype than substance

Got lucky that he rose to the top of a weak division at a time when he and Wilder refused to fight each other, Fury was 400lbs obese and off his head on coke, and Usyk was still at cruiserweight, otherwise in most other eras he’d never have even been a champion

 

AJ was a brand.

Built up by his handlers (given a good medal he didn't earn or win) to generate a lot of money and he did. An A-side boxer with the money men behind him at the right time.

AJ's legacy is that of hype not substance.

 

The amount of **** Joshua gets here is astonishing.
Meanwhile Fury did nothing of note and got a title shot. Granted, it was a spectacular win. Then he buggers off and comes back to fight Wilder, who himself had not done anything of note. And then Fury looses twice to Usyk.
But Joshua is the one with no substance and just pure hype?

Joshua is an athletically gifted, but technically flawed boxer. He did his best during a weak era and tried to unify the division. In fact, he should get credit for getting 3 of the 4 belts, but no one seems to care.

His story is not over yet, but I don´t see how he can rebound from such a brutal loss at his age. Now he is the old man he himself has fought majority of his career, let´s see if he can still hold his own.

 

Choke artist
Bodybuilding bum
Big stiff idiot
Dosser

Take your pick

Mentally weak as has been always apparent.

Gifted gold. Lost to Savon and could have called it for Camerelle another dodgy Olympics then Joyce won gold but got robbed in the next Olympics. Bought his first belt off Charles Martin, A total bum who only had that belt because they stripped it off Fury after 10 days. Gifted vacant belts against retired Wlad. Lost all said belts to a little fat man on 3 weeks notice. Gets chinned against anyone who has power so is carefully managed. Ducked Chisora his whole career. Ducked Kabayel. Ducked Dubious rematch, Arguably ducked Wilder and left it to a 400lb alcoholic coke head to do the business on 12 months notice. Eddie Hearn saw Usyk and got an erection thinking this low power cruiserweight could be easy pickings, how wrong he was. They'll make the same mistake when the Fury fight gets made, over confident with Fury's lack of power and get clipped by something and get bowled over by a shot to pieces Fury who will be 400 pounds of pure blubber come the summer but still good enough to handle a bodybuilder.

By my books his best win was a green parker who did not come to fight and choked as Parker has done before. Maybe Povetkin but Povetkin was getting past it at that point. Wlad should have chinned him but classic Wlad another big stiff idiot who's acclaim is length of reign against people who make mediocre AJ look like boxing jesus.

The truth is AJ's only claim to fame right now and any kind of legacy is to beat this worn out Fury on a slim punchers chance. He's praying on it but if Fury is honest to himself and feels his body is finished then the bodybuilder is going to have to suck eggs.

 

Most claim: Everything a conspiracy against fury.



Reality: yet fury gets lots of favourable decisions to help him along


Gaslighting is one hell of a skill

 

What does any of this have to do with AJ"s legacy?

 

Joshua was elite up to Dubois. He had never lost being outboxed prior to Usyk and beat the top hws. The one loss he had was due to his weak chin. Just because he lost to Usyk twice doesn’t mean he wasn’t a top 3 HW for years.

 

This is the moment AJ's career was over

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"Who do you think you are" The greatest and probably only off the cuff line of Dubious's career.

 

The dominant champion of a weak era.

Had his limitations, but sought out and/or fought all of the contenders available to him.

He's not ATG primarily because it being a weak era... But neither did he bring the sport into disrepute through excessive ducking (Wilder) or PED's (Fury, Whyte, etc).

History won't remember him as a true great, but it'll have more respect for him than current narratives - the opposite is likely true for Fury, IMHO.

 

Frank Bruno 2.0

 

Regardless of the (frankly astonishing) levels of disrespect that he seems to get on here - the truth is that his legacy is still being written at present - it is a little more fluid than Fury’s for example.

To explain - this is a deep era and will be remembered as such. Like it or not, Joshua fought many of the biggest names of this era along with retiring the pre-eminent leader of the prior era, and then collected all the other belts the hard way by beating each champion. From a resume perspective this will age very well. As I mentioned in the Fury thread, at the end of the day, like it or not, it always comes down to resume. All the circumstantial stuff becomes irrelevant with time.

He lost to Ruiz, but avenged it immediately. This should weigh against him no worse than McCall did against Lewis. Avenging a KO defeat with a shutout is commendable and a solid way to help fade a blemish.

He then lost twice to someone who I believe in time will be considered a top tier ATG, so whilst he may never be the best, he will not be shamed by being one of the best of a deep era.

His final standing really comes down to the next couple of fights. IF he can beat Fury, his all time stock will rise given how good and competitive Fury was against Usyk. IF he can avenge the Dubois loss he will end up very well regarded. That’s a big if.

ultimately, I think a lot comes down to his next couple of fights. But his general activity and depth of resume means that his “legacy” has a lot more scope to go up over the short term than Fury’s for example. As someone else mentioned, his H2H results against common opponents with Fury burnishes Joshua’s position - but it really just comes down to who prevails when they eventually, and hopefully, fight in my opinion.

 

Two of those were vacant.

The first was Charles Martin, who was handed the title on a plate when Tyson Fury was stripped in 2015. Martin fought Vyacheslav Glazkov for the belt the IBF took from Fury and basically won by default due to injury.

The second was against a forty one year Wlad old who had not fought in two years, who also would never fight again, for the Vacant WBA belt.

Had he actually beat Dubois it would have been AJ defeating another Champion who had simply been handed the IBF belt.