Why did Anthony Joshua exhibit such poor defense?

I think folks sarcasm-detection-radar is missing from the OP.

This is a thinly-veiled kick-Joshua-when-he is down post!

Well played OP, u got 'em!

 

AJ has enjoyed a carefully curated career path where he has avoided punchers, and been able to deceive alot people including the mugs.

However, when it comes down to it. He has Frank Bruno esque reactions to being hurt, and is unable to recover from being buzzed to be able to win a fight.

If you are a puncher and at least average at everything else you wont have too much difficulty in taking AJ out. Those are the facts, and they will no doubt milk him from now on against boxers and non-punchers like Franklin / Wallin etc...

There is still alot of money to be made from AJ facing top 30 level guys who dont have any pop in their punches.

 

AJ didn't show up, he looked compromised before the fight and during he wasn't reacting properly while he had his ass beaten. AJ had given up in the face of adversity. On the other hand Dubious was a lion, unstoppable

 

Facin' punchers or not, I agree with op's argument and I wuz shocked as well, did he show in other fights such poor defense?

 

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be this obsessed by somebody who doesn’t even know you exist.
It must be really sad.

 

Joshua performed like he acted during the pre fight weeks. Too confident that he's been there and done that all way long before Dubois. The same way he was confident against Ngannou that he'll land his 1-2 shots and finish fast. And to me it seemed that he only trained for the right upper cut and the right over head and gave poor defence so Dubois would fall for the trap.

I think Joshua will easily win a rematch, learning from this defeat.

 

Yes he has shown such poor defence before.

Against Ruiz Jr he was caught with his chin in the air, and after that his defence was horrific because when he is hurt he turns into a rabbit in the headlights.

Same thing happened against Dubois, got caught with his hands down and chin in the air. Then was unable to ever recover from initially being hurt.

If he is in with a Franklin type who cannot bang, yes he can look somewhat passable as a boxer with a good defence.

But stick him in with a banger, and you can guarantee he gets caught and when he gets caught its ONLY a matter of time.

Can he put his hands up and move around like a boxer? Yes sure.

When he is in the pocket and punching does he have the defence of an elite boxer? No, never.

His defence is only ever good when he is not punching himself and is on the outside, but you can say that about half the pro boxers out there. A really good defence is judged by what you are doing when you are punching and when you are in the pocket and in range.

 

Looks the part to the non boxing public . Bit chinny and a bully . Always been the same

 

Not only is Dubois a banger, he also has an educated, ramrod jab. AJ could fight the perfect fight but once that jab starts landing again he'll fall apart. Everyone mentions the right hand knockdown but not that AJ lost every single jab exchange beforehand.

Personally, I think a rematch is just delaying the inevitable. AJ might box well for 2 - 3 rounds before being out jabbed and clipped again.

 

Because when he gets hurt badly he tends to not to move. In general can be said the first things that go away when he gets punched are his legs. The same Wilder.

 

The only reason the rematch is happening is because of Hearn’s massive ego and his desperation to retain the value of his cash cow.

It’s a really bad decision though if you are looking to get more money out of AJ, as once he has been flattened for a second time his commercial value is zero.

You could move on and style it out for 3-4 more fights against non-punchers mugging the casuals off.

But Hearn’s huge ego is going to get in the way of the best business decision in this case.

 

Joshua didn’t seem to have any punch resistance. If you watch a boxing match closely, these boppers are landing quite frequently on each other but most of the time they don’t flinch, everything Dubois was landing seemed to have an affect on Joshua.

The question is, is that because he was facing Dubois or is this due to Joshua deteriorating physically? It’s hard to say.

In saying that, Dubois has been an absolute wrecking ball in his past 3 fights, nobody has demolished Miller, Hrgovic and Joshua like Dubois did, it’s been quite shocking to watch to be honest.

 

He was concussed yes, but by a jab

 

Bum

 

Joshua has always been about offense.
He puts punches together well and he's an explosive puncher. That alone was enough to put most the C-level opponents on the defensive so they don't mount an offensive of their own.

Against proper quality opponents he's in trouble