Where was the old AJ?

Gone. Joshua isn't willing to die in the ring in order to win. Not to mention he was slipping back into old habits in their second bout. Even if the "old AJ" magically returned he still wouldn't have won. Joshua's cardio is trash, Usyk's ring IQ and cardio is elite.

 

How he fought was much better than trying to blast Usyk out like the British or below guys Joshua did that to.

 

He was almost stopped by an inactive and over 40 Wlad.

He would have spent himself and gotten stopped by Usyk if he tried that.

 

Usyk is constantly moving, Joshua simply can't get to him. He's not good at cutting off the ring. It's one thing beating a slow 41 year old Wlad and 39 year old Povetkin another thing fighting someone who isn't a stationary target.

 

Ruiz has no power like Wlad and did stop Joshua.

Usyk has shown he can hurt Joshua, and has a great gas tank and Ring IQ. If Joshua was exhausted, he wouldn't recover and would get stopped.

There's good reason that Joshua changed his style

 

He fought a perfect game plan. He kept Usyk moving, kept him very active, softened him with body shots and set him up for the huge right hand, but when the big shot landed, Usyk ate it up.

The fight up to the 9th round went the way AJ wanted it to, the problem is his plan didn't work.

 

When people talk about the old AJ, they're talking about the guy who looked really good knocking out Raphael Zambano Love and Kevin Johnson.

It's all well and good letting your hands go against journeymen but if he persisted with that style he'd probably have 5 or 6 losses on his record instead of 3.

 

exactly. these questions. asking why he didn't fight Oleksandr Usyk like he fight Gary Cornish !

 

It's the footwork, the angles, and the southpaw stance of usyk, the constant turning by usyk, and also the constant countering of an elite IQ fighter.

The old AJ would be there against 95 percent of fighters but I'm convinced if these 2 fought 10 times, the fight would play out the same way every single time.

 

The "old AJ“ would've been more easily beaten by Usyk. Usyk doesn't suddenly become easier to hit just because someone is aggressive. See the Chisora fight. Let's not undersell AJ, rather focus on how good Usyk is.

 

Remember that being sold as a 50/50 fight: 50/50 Cornish made it out of the first minute, maybe...

 

Just re-watched that 'fight'. The opening line from the comms should have told us something: 'A joiner by trade, he's been given six weeks off by his company to prepare for this...'