Anthony Joshua vs. Jermaine Franklin | DAZN - April 1, 2023

[Evander]

I think what people are applauding is something of a detriment because he looks more mechanical than he has been before.

What he needs is more tune up's. A complete and total rebuilding phase. Kind of like what Lennox Lewis did after losing to Oliver McCall.

To the first point I agree, he does look mechanical you're right.
To the second point, no he doesn't need more tune ups and it took Lennox two and a half years to get McCall back in the ring.
The rebuilding stage is over, perhaps the adjustment and maturing as a Heavyweight stage is now on but not the rebuilding, he's not that bad.
Physically Joshua is great, I think he's just come to that age in his early 30's when the parts of life's jigsaw come together and he's begun to work it out.
Hopefully for him he's gotten past the 20's immaturity and is realizing what's really good for him and perhaps he will make those adjustments and make it work for him in the best way possible.

[HomicideHenry]

I think what people are applauding is something of a detriment because he looks more mechanical than he has been before.

What he needs is more tune up's. A complete and total rebuilding phase. Kind of like what Lennox Lewis did after losing to Oliver McCall.

To the first point I agree, he does look mechanical you're right.
To the second point, no he doesn't need more tune ups and it took Lennox two and a half years to get McCall back in the ring.
The rebuilding stage is over, perhaps the adjustment and maturing as a Heavyweight stage is now on but not the rebuilding, he's not that bad.
Physically Joshua is great, I think he's just come to that age in his early 30's when the parts of life's jigsaw come together and he's begun to work it out.
Hopefully for him he's gotten past the 20's immaturity and is realizing what's really good for him and perhaps he will make those adjustments and make it work for him in the best way possible.

The problem with Anthony Joshua is that he was so physically gifted that they took him from the shallow end and threw him into the deep end. I don't think he ever truly developed properly as a boxer. He missed so much fine tuning by never really having middle ground fights. So it's like him re learning the sport all over again.

[Lackeos]

they took him from the shallow end and threw him into the deep end. I don't think he ever truly developed properly as a boxer

You're talking about the guy who has an Olympic gold medal, a world AM silver medal, four-belt pro world champion, KO'ed Wladimir Klitschko, etc.?

[Evander]

I think what people are applauding is something of a detriment because he looks more mechanical than he has been before.

What he needs is more tune up's. A complete and total rebuilding phase. Kind of like what Lennox Lewis did after losing to Oliver McCall.

To the first point I agree, he does look mechanical you're right.
To the second point, no he doesn't need more tune ups and it took Lennox two and a half years to get McCall back in the ring.
The rebuilding stage is over, perhaps the adjustment and maturing as a Heavyweight stage is now on but not the rebuilding, he's not that bad.
Physically Joshua is great, I think he's just come to that age in his early 30's when the parts of life's jigsaw come together and he's begun to work it out.
Hopefully for him he's gotten past the 20's immaturity and is realizing what's really good for him and perhaps he will make those adjustments and make it work for him in the best way possible.

The problem with Anthony Joshua is that he was so physically gifted that they took him from the shallow end and threw him into the deep end. I don't think he ever truly developed properly as a boxer. He missed so much fine tuning by never really having middle ground fights. So it's like him re learning the sport all over again.

Re learning the sport, I don't think so, I think he's had enough experience to figure out how boxing works by now.
He may need just this type of fight [Tyson Fury] to get him motivated again.
He's strapless and has every reason to get himself up for this.
Will he do it is another question, he certainly has the capabilities if he does the proper preparation and has the person to come up with the plan to inflict Fury's first defeat.
I could come up with the a game plan to beat Fury, it's not that hard, following through on it is another thing altogether.

[HomicideHenry]

they took him from the shallow end and threw him into the deep end. I don't think he ever truly developed properly as a boxer

You're talking about the guy who has an Olympic gold medal, a world AM silver medal, four-belt pro world champion, KO'ed Wladimir Klitschko, etc.?

Look at his career. He went from GARY CORNISH to the IBF belt to Klitschko. There was virtually no middle ground fights for him to truly develop his skills. His physical gifts carried him through to the top but he missed a lot of things, and those things became telling the moment he hit road bumps.

Whether people want to really acknowledge it or not his road to the top was one of the softest in heavyweight boxing history. He merely looked the part because Klitschko was old, and even then he nearly lost. His title defenses were only marginally better than Wilder's.

Then came Ruiz. The worst possible guy to have as a replacement opponent. Fast heavy hands, underrated skills, and an iron chin. Combine all that with an attitude of having nothing to lose, it was a recipe for disaster.

Ruiz was the kind of guy that Joshua should have fought much, much earlier in his career. But his management skipped the middle ground for an easy title grab against Charles Martin, and they rolled the dice with Klitschko because he was already looking vulnerable since prior to Fury and was inactive for over a year.

[Evander]

his management skipped the middle ground for an easy title grab against Charles Martin, and they rolled the dice with Klitschko because he was already looking vulnerable since prior to Fury and was inactive for over a year.

There's a couple of talking points.

[gregregegg]

they took him from the shallow end and threw him into the deep end. I don't think he ever truly developed properly as a boxer

You're talking about the guy who has an Olympic gold medal, a world AM silver medal, four-belt pro world champion, KO'ed Wladimir Klitschko, etc.?

Look at his career. He went from GARY CORNISH to the IBF belt to Klitschko. There was virtually no middle ground fights for him to truly develop his skills. His physical gifts carried him through to the top but he missed a lot of things, and those things became telling the moment he hit road bumps.

Whether people want to really acknowledge it or not his road to the top was one of the softest in heavyweight boxing history. He merely looked the part because Klitschko was old, and even then he nearly lost. His title defenses were only marginally better than Wilder's.

Then came Ruiz. The worst possible guy to have as a replacement opponent. Fast heavy hands, underrated skills, and an iron chin. Combine all that with an attitude of having nothing to lose, it was a recipe for disaster.

Ruiz was the kind of guy that Joshua should have fought much, much earlier in his career. But his management skipped the middle ground for an easy title grab against Charles Martin, and they rolled the dice with Klitschko because he was already looking vulnerable since prior to Fury and was inactive for over a year.

Between Cornish and klit he fought Whyte, Charles Martin, breazeal and molina are all fine middle ground fights. I’d say he had more middle ground fights than most. After Throw takem in to and Old pulev?

[HomicideHenry]

You're talking about the guy who has an Olympic gold medal, a world AM silver medal, four-belt pro world champion, KO'ed Wladimir Klitschko, etc.?

Look at his career. He went from GARY CORNISH to the IBF belt to Klitschko. There was virtually no middle ground fights for him to truly develop his skills. His physical gifts carried him through to the top but he missed a lot of things, and those things became telling the moment he hit road bumps.

Whether people want to really acknowledge it or not his road to the top was one of the softest in heavyweight boxing history. He merely looked the part because Klitschko was old, and even then he nearly lost. His title defenses were only marginally better than Wilder's.

Then came Ruiz. The worst possible guy to have as a replacement opponent. Fast heavy hands, underrated skills, and an iron chin. Combine all that with an attitude of having nothing to lose, it was a recipe for disaster.

Ruiz was the kind of guy that Joshua should have fought much, much earlier in his career. But his management skipped the middle ground for an easy title grab against Charles Martin, and they rolled the dice with Klitschko because he was already looking vulnerable since prior to Fury and was inactive for over a year.

Between Cornish and klit he fought Whyte, Charles Martin, breazeal and molina are all fine middle ground fights. I’d say he had more middle ground fights than most. After Throw takem in to and Old pulev?

Cornish= British level
Whyte= British level (at the time)
Martin= IBF title
Brezeale= IBF defense
Molina= IBF defense
Klitschko= WBA/IBF unification
Takam= IBF/WBA defense
Parker= WBA/WBO/IBF unification

The jump from domestic British level fights to world alphabet title matches, at least to my mind, was skipping middle ground. Now, one can argue Martin & Brezeale & Molina were middle ground bouts but in my view it was hardly learning curve bouts. They couldn't really challenge the man. The only "test" Joshua had was against Klitschko where he picked himself up off the canvas to win.

Takam, arguably a middle ground fight, but again there was no learning curve there. Parker was a legitimate top ten guy, no question, but a lot of people felt at the time the Italian referee basically was fighting against Parker too. So, all in all, here you had a guy rushed to the top with only one test and one assist to become unified champion (minus the WBC belt).

Ruiz would become Joshua's second test, at least in terms of his character. He did change his body composition and style for the rematch and won, although it wasn't a great performance. One can argue he didn't win it as much as it was Ruiz threw the title away by nearly being 300 pounds.

I think had Joshua not fought Martin years ago and had 3 or 4 or 5 middle ground bouts before going for the titles it's possible the loss to Ruiz might've never happened. It's plausible that the losses to Usyk might've not happened either because it's clear the Ruiz loss changed Joshua's overall abilities as a boxer. He's not been as aggressive as he used to be.

Imagine if Joshua after Whyte fought Ruiz then. I think he would've learned a lot much sooner than he did. He would've been more battle tested and ready for someone like Usyk. But by taking matches where there was no learning curve to build from it only ruined him in the long run.

Don't get me wrong Joshua probably could defeat everybody in the division under the top five. Including somebody like Joe Joyce. But he'd of certainly benefited from more tests. Because of the lack of tests in his career he is paying for it now. I tend to think that's why Eddie Hearn wants to cash out with a Fury fight because he can see what a lot of Joshua fans can't see, that the man has more holes in his game and emotional makeup than previously thought.

[margaret thatcher]

josh has fought a great depth of strong contenders and champs. throughout the last few years of keeping our boxrec forum rankings, he was consistently the top 15 fighter with the most wins over other ranked fighters, often by a margin of several fighters

i mean he could've fought such poor opposition that dom breazeale or bermane are still a top 3 victim for him 40+ fights in, but thankfully he hasnt. there's been no issue at all with how he was brought up, he'd already fought several guys on ruiz's level or better (even a guy who'd beat andy) and just made a mistake that he easily reversed in the rematch. no fights would allow him to beat usyk, who is super fit master boxer with energy +mobility that is all wrong for aj.

wlad
usyk x2
pov
whyte
parker
pulev
ruiz x2 (loss immediately avenged by near shutout)
takam
martin (aka jab of the gawds, as lou ortiz knows)
breazeale
frank
molina

that's pretty good, since he won a title there's been very very few nobodies in there......molina prob the worst

[HomicideHenry]

Pulev was old, as was Povetkin. Both men already easily dispatched by Klitschko years before, and it still took Joshua quite a few rounds to put them away. Joshua's career was all about the cherry picks and easy road. Not so much by his own choosing but by his management and promoter.

The guy believed himself to be Superman when he was far from it, just like Gerry Cooney believed himself to be the biggest threat to Larry Holmes. That's why it's been an emotional roller-coaster for Joshua since Ruiz. He was brain washed into believing something that was simply untrue of himself.

And clearly by the responses of some, it's self evident people don't want to believe that he wasn't brought up the wrong way or there was anything wrong with him. That the Ruiz loss was a fluke, and Usyk was just too fast. I think people who are more objective wouldn't want to see him jump straight in with Fury or Wilder because it would be disastrous. Perhaps even Joyce.

P.S.

Let's get real. I'm an American and even I can say American heavyweights are garbage. Molina, Takam, Brezeale, were not good or great wins. Top ten contenders my foot, they were in reality top 20 guys who were put in that position by organizations with not so good track records. They were marginally better than the stiffs Wilder was knocking out.

[margaret thatcher]

pulev and pov were old, but still legit contenders in the division if we're judging compared to who else was actually out there. wlad klit was nearly 40 when fury beat him ,, doesnt mean it doesnt count. i assume by the same measure we cant really value a win over methuselah ortiz then

to say josh had an easy path is ridiculous, within 2.5 years pro he'd already knocked out whyte, breazeale (still a top wilder win), and martin. within 5 years pro, the same time it took wilder to fight his first top 10 opponent, he'd added parker, povetkin, wlad, and takam to that.

he has fought fringe top 15 guys, he has fought top 5 contenders, and he has fought elite p4p level guys. he has immediately rematched both guys who beat him, instead of being steered towards rebuilding with cans. by the time of fighting ruiz and usyk he'd already fought loadds of ranked guys, how those losses come down to weak matchmaking is beyond me.

to single him out for soft matching making is ridiciulous, he's easily been the most consistently well matched top hw of the last generation.

[gregregegg]

AJ vs ruiz just got hit by a good shot and never recovered. There was luck in it, but theres luck in every good shot. interestingly It would of looked less bad for him if he just got iced and never made the count instead he continued fighting dizzy and concussed and so it looked more like a domination than a freak punch... but Usyk was just strait up better. These are very different losses...

Could AJ of been more carefull vs ruiz, sure, but it wasnt his poor preperation that got him its just something that happens now and then, favorites get clipped... (see lennox lewis for extbook examples....).

The only way AJ beats usyk is if when he was 4 years old he caught the buss to ukrain and Lomas dad addopted him and trained him and was so busy training him that he never trained usyk... (this is an exageration, but fighting for the euro title wasnt going to change it)

[HomicideHenry]

The man was rushed to the top. Period.

His opposition was as weak as possible. Period.

Martin? Only became IBF champ cus of politics. Therefore Joshua was a paper champion.

Klitschko? Already showing signs of slowing down prior to losing to Fury. Throw in inactivity. 39-40 years old.

Brezeale? Molina? Takam? Are they really any better than Jermaine Franklin? No. Same level.

Povetkin? Damn near 40 or was. Pulev? Old too.

The only solid win Joshua had was Parker. And even that got tainted because the referee did everything in his power to make Parker as least effective as possible.

If people cannot see how all that doesn't really prepare a guy for the unexpected, or for somebody fearless and up to snuff. I don't know what else to say. We agree to disagree. Joshua at this point in his career would get knocked out by Fury, Joyce and Wilder.

People don't want to accept that the guy really wasn't all that he was made out to be. Guys who are the goods, and know they are the goods, don't lose to fringe contenders or have basically nervous breakdowns after losing fights.

Jermaine Franklin was brought in to get knocked out. Everybody knows it. Whyte, who is hardly a top ten guy anymore, barely beat him. It was supposed to be easy. Twelve whole rounds it went. If anything this is proof that Joshua has gotten worse instead of better.

[margaret thatcher]

his opposition wasn't as weak as possible at all, to do that he could've had, say, malik scott and kevlin price and audley harrison as his top opponents before entering the championship fray

before facing ruiz he'd fought: wlad, parker (beat ruiz), povetkin, whyte, takam, breazeale, martin, etc. pov and takam were both shorter sluggers, not perfect resemblances of ruiz but among the closer matches for him among contenders.

before facing usyk he'd fought all those plus ruizx2 and pulev.......after an am career where he also fought zhang, wallin, joyce and elite ams like cammarelle x2.

ya, sure, just the weakest prep out there, what he really needed was to fight steve cunningham and he would've been ready

[margaret thatcher]

btw, if you think josh would've won all his fights if he'd just been matched a bit tougher along the way, you must rate him as one f@cking hell of a talent, getting to atg levels !

[HomicideHenry]

I must be more right than wrong considering Fury has yet to lose and fought the younger version of Klitschko and defeated Wilder basically three times. Any of the guys Joshua beat Fury would have as well. And Fury never even made it to the Olympics, or beat any of the amateurs Joshua did.

So either Fury was a hell of a lot better than ever given credit for or he simply had a harder road than Joshua ever did in the professional ranks. You decide.

P.S.

Maybe Joshua should've fought a guy like Cunningham. At least Cunningham was a 2x cruiserweight champion. That is worth more than Brezeale, Takam, Molina, Pulev and arguably Povetkin.

[margaret thatcher]

what the hell are you talking about, when did this become a fury issue? was this all just an undercover fury deepthroat

fury is just better than joshua, going into the klit fifght his best opponents were cunningham and chisora, joshua would've hardly been more prepared if that had been his schedule

cunninham moved to heavy because he couldnt beat yoan pablo hernandez at cruiser. he never accomplished anything bigger at heavy than coming off the canvas twice to beat amir mansour. suggesting he'd be better than the likes of povetkin is just lol

[HomicideHenry]

what the hell are you talking about, where did fury come from in all this, was this all just an undercover fury deepthroat

fury is just better than joshua, going into the klit fifght his best opponents were cunningham and chisora, joshua would've hardly been more prepared if that had been his schedule

cunninham moved to heavy because he couldnt beat yoan pablo hernandez at cruiser. he never accomplished anything bigger at heavy than coming off the canvas twice to beat amir mansour. suggesting he'd be better than the likes of povetkin is just lol

A 2x cruiserweight champion is worth more than 40 year old Povetkin that Joshua fought. Especially when you consider Povetkin already lost years prior to Klitschko. The Cunningham that Fury beat is worth more than the Povetkin or Pulev that Joshua beat.

[margaret thatcher]

the only cruiser title fights cunn had won in the 5 years before facing fury were over enad licina and troy ross (he was dropped and losing vs ross too before a very arguable cut stoppage).......pretty much irrelevant at hw. cunningham barely survived amir mansour in what was his best heavy win by miles. he couldnt even beat an ancient antonio tarver

before aj's first loss he'd also beat the likes of wlad, parker, whyte, .........who in addition to pov are all better than chisora and cunn

[gregregegg]

what the hell are you talking about, where did fury come from in all this, was this all just an undercover fury deepthroat

fury is just better than joshua, going into the klit fifght his best opponents were cunningham and chisora, joshua would've hardly been more prepared if that had been his schedule

cunninham moved to heavy because he couldnt beat yoan pablo hernandez at cruiser. he never accomplished anything bigger at heavy than coming off the canvas twice to beat amir mansour. suggesting he'd be better than the likes of povetkin is just lol

A 2x cruiserweight champion is worth more than 40 year old Povetkin that Joshua fought. Especially when you consider Povetkin already lost years prior to Klitschko. The Cunningham that Fury beat is worth more than the Povetkin or Pulev that Joshua beat.

If you are suggesting that fury’s win over Cunningham is better than AJs win over povetkin then you have lost the argument and should probably just stop and take the L…

[margaret thatcher]

yes, somehow aj could've avoided all the losses in his career simply if he'd faced cunningham and chisora

as hom's last post showed, this all comes down to being another weird furyboi flex

[HomicideHenry]

yes, somehow aj could've avoided all the losses in his career simply if he'd faced cunningham and chisora

He went from fornicating Gary Cornish to world class fights. He'd of been better served if he had fought Chisora and Cunningham. Or somebody worth something ffs other than human punching bag Kevin Johnson. He never was properly prepared or tested. Considering how bad Joshua lost to Usyk twice, it's not a stretch to imagine Cunningham giving Joshua fits considering Fury had issues with him.

[joshj909]

what the hell are you talking about, where did fury come from in all this, was this all just an undercover fury deepthroat

fury is just better than joshua, going into the klit fifght his best opponents were cunningham and chisora, joshua would've hardly been more prepared if that had been his schedule

cunninham moved to heavy because he couldnt beat yoan pablo hernandez at cruiser. he never accomplished anything bigger at heavy than coming off the canvas twice to beat amir mansour. suggesting he'd be better than the likes of povetkin is just lol

A 2x cruiserweight champion is worth more than 40 year old Povetkin that Joshua fought. Especially when you consider Povetkin already lost years prior to Klitschko. The Cunningham that Fury beat is worth more than the Povetkin or Pulev that Joshua beat.

If you are suggesting that fury’s win over Cunningham is better than AJs win over povetkin then you have lost the argument and should probably just stop and take the L…

Cunningham was 6-5-1 at heavyweight. Going into the Fury fight he was coming off the back of a loss to a good Cruiserweight turned average heavyweight and as you mentioned only had one semi-notable win at heavyweight against Mansour. At 35, this fight also came 6 years after his last notable win at Cruiser against Huck over which time he had a record of 4-4. What a phenomenal win Cunningham was...

[Lackeos]

Look at his career. He went from GARY CORNISH to the IBF belt to Klitschko. There was virtually no middle ground fights for him to truly develop his skills. His physical gifts carried him through to the top but he missed a lot of things, and those things became telling the moment he hit road bumps.

Are you under the impression that fighters don't develop any skills in the amateurs? Do you not think that the skills of Usyk, Lomachenko, Rigondeaux, Beterbiev, and Golovkin were overwhelmingly formed during their hundreds of amateur fights each? You don't think Joshua learned anything in the amateurs from fighting Whyte, Cammarelle x2 (3x world gold medalist), Majidov (3x world gold medalist), Joyce (silver medalist), Wallin x2, Dychko (2x silver, 3x bronze medalist), Zhilei Zhang (Olympian), Erislandy Savon (world gold medalist), Sergey Kuzmin (European gold medalist), Baghouz (Olympian), Clarke (Olympian), Sean Turner x2

By the time he fought Gary Cornish, he already had several fights against world amateur gold and silver medalists.

For you to be arguing this much with the whole forum, are you that biased against Joshua, or are you pathologically afraid of realizing you were mistaken?

[HomicideHenry]

The amateurs means nothing. Three round bouts do not determine anything other than a glimpse of talent. Otherwise every Olympic gold medalist would've run roughshod over everyone else in the sport.

The fact that Tyson Fury never went to the Olympics and defeated Wilder (bronze medalist) and Klitschko (gold medalist) pretty much sums up the importance of the amateurs on a whole.

To quote THE GREAT WHITE HYPE:

Roper: "I was 17 man I could kill Howdy Doody now!"

Anyways 2012 was ages ago. Joshua was 23 years old then. He started boxing as an amateur in 2008, just 19 years old. So all these matches you're spouting off about in the amateurs was literally teenagers and really young men slapping each other around. It doesn't mean a thing now. All the learning as a professional begins in the pro ring.