BoxRec

Not a bad match-up at all. Airich went the distance with (a fat, unmotivated but still very skilled) Solis and knocked out the once-fancied Ondrej Pala. He can certainly punch, that lad.

Thoughts?

This is on the Quigg undercard in Manchester on September 13, by the way.

fair match up.

Joshua stoppage within 3. Good matchup though at this stage for a 7-0 guy.

Gotta love how aggressive Anthony's schedule is & how respectable his opponents have been. Idk if anyone has been moved this aggressively, successfully in year 1 @ HW anytime lately & certainly not currently. Anthony's already among the top 50 on Boxrec with a 7-0 record. Should be interesting to see how things transpire in his 2nd year with his current pace.

I think Skelton, Airich, and Sprott are all on about the same level these days. Maybe Sprott is the best of the group by a small margin but not by much. Joshua probably KOs Airich and Sprott inside 4 rounds each.

ReggieDiggs wrote:Gotta love how aggressive Anthony's schedule is & how respectable his opponents have been. Idk if anyone has been moved this aggressively, successfully in year 1 @ HW anytime lately & certainly not currently. Anthony's already among the top 50 on Boxrec with a 7-0 record. Should be interesting to see how things transpire in his 2nd year with his current pace.

Pulev was moved more aggressively if that counts as lately, but it's hard to think of many others within the past few years. Good mix of activity and opposition level for his number of fights.

crusader wrote:

ReggieDiggs wrote:Gotta love how aggressive Anthony's schedule is & how respectable his opponents have been. Idk if anyone has been moved this aggressively, successfully in year 1 @ HW anytime lately & certainly not currently. Anthony's already among the top 50 on Boxrec with a 7-0 record. Should be interesting to see how things transpire in his 2nd year with his current pace.

Pulev was moved more aggressively if that counts as lately, but it's hard to think of many others within the past few years. Good mix of activity and opposition level for his number of fights.

Damn yea guess so. Was fighting Dominick Guinn @ the start of year 2 & had fought Skelton in his 5th fight in his 5th month as a pro.

fergusg wrote:I’m not too sure about Joshua’s next two match-ups against Konstantin Airich and Michael Sprott, because all I can see is him scoring two very quick and one-sided victories within a couple of rounds each at most.

blah blah blah

Get outta town. You only have to look at everyone else's opinion in this thread and every other heavyweight donkey's schedule to know Joshua's progress is good and his team have rightfully got a lot of confidence in him.

Also you mentioned Zavorotnyi but Joshua was supposed to be facing him anyway. I don't know what happened to that fight but it was scheduled, so they are ready to line up this type of guy. Giving him Airich and Sprott first is hardly Deontay Wilder-esque matchmaking.

boxing is about levels

so yes we expect him to crush airich but he is moving up slowly

dont wanna do what kellie did with david price and put him in with tony thompson

Riddick Blowe wrote:

fergusg wrote:I’m not too sure about Joshua’s next two match-ups against Konstantin Airich and Michael Sprott, because all I can see is him scoring two very quick and one-sided victories within a couple of rounds each at most.

blah blah blah

Get outta town. You only have to look at everyone else's opinion in this thread and every other heavyweight donkey's schedule to know Joshua's progress is good and his team have rightfully got a lot of confidence in him.

Also you mentioned Zavorotnyi but Joshua was supposed to be facing him anyway. I don't know what happened to that fight but it was scheduled, so they are ready to line up this type of guy. Giving him Airich and Sprott first is hardly Deontay Wilder-esque matchmaking.

The Zavarotnyi fight was due to be on the Macklin undercard on 30th August, but after what happened to Jamie Moore that show was cancelled and Joshua's fight was moved to 13th September but Zavorotnyi isn't available on that date, so Airich is being brought in as a replacement

Decent step up above Brittish level.

I think the Tony Thompson fights for me came about a good three or four fights to early for David Price looking at it. When the first fight was announced after Price had run over Audley Harrison and Matt Skelton respectively. I thought it was a massive gamble to put someone like Price I regarded at the time as topline British level who had yet to mix it with a fighter for the European title. To be put in with someone who had twice boxed for the World title and it was going to be either a massive success or sink. And sadly for Price it was the latter.

As for Big Josh, Airlich has got some pop so he might give him something to think about for a few rounds but I still think Big Josh will emerge with a late stoppage or a dominant points win. As for Michael Sprott, another tough durable and experienced fighter who Josh needs to beat if he wants to get a crack at the British title.

Airich beat Ondrej Pala when he was on his winning streak. Sprott beat Edmund Gerber when he was undefeated. Some of us have been around the 2 entire years that it would take to remember back when Pala and Gerber were prospects ranked in the top 50. No shame in fighting both of Airich and Sprott in your first 9 pro fights.

fergusg wrote:
Anyway, if Joshua knocks out his next two opponents with relative ease, which he almost certainly will... would you still consider my opinion absurd?

Yes. Who the hell do you want him to fight within his first year of being a pro? He will knock them out because he is that good and the heavyweight division is thin. There's no real depth between contenders and chumps like there used to be. Joshua could be bowling over stiffs for two years to get a highlight reel and some hype going and it would be no different to the activity of most heavyweights. But he isn't. You just can't see the difference for some reason. When he starts fighting for titles way earlier than other top prospects did, hopefully you will.

To be fair Riddick, I see fergusg's point.


Sprott and Airich are good opponents for this stage in his career in term's of their relative level and class. They are a "step up" for sure.
Because of their respective styles and experience, Joshua will potentially learn something from these fights. However, due to their lack of durability, there is also a high likelihood that he’ll blow them out in a couple of rounds.

It’s good for his development to face a variety of styles of opponents such as Sprott who have been around the block and know all the tricks in the book. But he also desperately needs rounds; not only to test his stamina but also to give him the mental confidence that he can do the rounds, at a decent pace. Doing 12 rounds in the gym is completely different to doing it in a fight, where you are much less relaxed and your body is consuming a lot of nervous energy.

Thus maybe at this point in time when he is close to fighting for regional titles which could potentially go 10 or more rounds, he needs a durable opponent/defensive minded opponent.

black panther wrote:To be fair Riddick, I see fergusg's point.


Sprott and Airich are good opponents for this stage in his career in term's of their relative level and class. They are a "step up" for sure.
Because of their respective styles and experience, Joshua will potentially learn something from these fights. However, due to their lack of durability, there is also a high likelihood that he’ll blow them out in a couple of rounds.

It’s good for his development to face a variety of styles of opponents such as Sprott who have been around the block and know all the tricks in the book. But he also desperately needs rounds; not only to test his stamina but also to give him the mental confidence that he can do the rounds, at a decent pace. Doing 12 rounds in the gym is completely different to doing it in a fight, where you are much less relaxed and your body is consuming a lot of nervous energy.

Thus maybe at this point in time when he is close to fighting for regional titles which could potentially go 10 or more rounds, he needs a durable opponent/defensive minded opponent.

There's no rush. he's what, 24? Building him up gradually gets him more fights and more exposure. You want him fighting for titles when people know who he is and will tune in. When he's at the top of the tree, I can guarantee noone will be complaining about the time at the start of his career when he fought two overmatched guys too many.

Airich, Sprott, and Zavorotnyi are a great trio of opponents for him to fight next. He'll be 10-0 and probably top 20 in the world after that. In a little over a year as a pro.

Riddick Blowe wrote:

black panther wrote:To be fair Riddick, I see fergusg's point.


Sprott and Airich are good opponents for this stage in his career in term's of their relative level and class. They are a "step up" for sure.
Because of their respective styles and experience, Joshua will potentially learn something from these fights. However, due to their lack of durability, there is also a high likelihood that he’ll blow them out in a couple of rounds.

It’s good for his development to face a variety of styles of opponents such as Sprott who have been around the block and know all the tricks in the book. But he also desperately needs rounds; not only to test his stamina but also to give him the mental confidence that he can do the rounds, at a decent pace. Doing 12 rounds in the gym is completely different to doing it in a fight, where you are much less relaxed and your body is consuming a lot of nervous energy.

Thus maybe at this point in time when he is close to fighting for regional titles which could potentially go 10 or more rounds, he needs a durable opponent/defensive minded opponent.

There's no rush. he's what, 24? Building him up gradually gets him more fights and more exposure. You want him fighting for titles when people know who he is and will tune in. When he's at the top of the tree, I can guarantee noone will be complaining about the time at the start of his career when he fought two overmatched guys too many.

Airich, Sprott, and Zavorotnyi are a great trio of opponents for him to fight next. He'll be 10-0 and probably top 20 in the world after that. In a little over a year as a pro.

Yeah fair enough. Especially Zavorotnyi; he should put a tickbox next to the "rounds" category.

fergusg wrote:but the noises we’re hearing from the Matchroom Sport stable is that Joshua is being pushed rather quickly, as the original plan was for him to challenge for the world title in 2016… and his bout against Michael Sprott in October will be for a title (TBA on Friday).

Therefore, in the context of Eddie Hearns claims, do you still maintain that Airich and Sprott are “great” opponents for him to face?

Promoters set out 'ambitious plans' all the time for their promising fighters. Because their job is to promote and get people talking. It's always hot air. 'Oh this cat is gonna be king of the world come this time next year, he only needs 5 more fights and he'll have a world title shot, better look out for him' More likely he'll be caught up in some combination of treading water looking for fights, getting injured, getting pulled out on, marking time, or boxing politics. See Tyson Fury since Chisora I.

Riddick Blowe is right. Promoters are hot air, there's no way Anthony Joshua will be fighting top 10 fighters in six months, and Sprott and Airich are very ambitious opponents for fight #8 and #9. If Joshua blows them away, he'll probably be fighting someone like Ustinov or Wawrzyk in the winter. Then his resume will be close to on-par with Wilder's after just 15 months of professional fighting.

If Joshua blows them away, he'll probably be fighting someone like Ustinov or Wawrzyk in the winter.

I see Joshua either going the Fury route (read: Kevin Johnson, Nikolai Firtha, Joey Abell) or the Price route (McDermott, Sexton, Harrison).

Airich and Sprott are good choices this early in his career. He needs to be out, I appreciate the concern that he may blow these guys out early, but its not like his swinging from the trenches trying to make that happen in a Wilder manner.

He boxes away, and waits for the openings. he's actually setting up fight ending shots rather than forcing them.

after these fights I'd like to see him move on to Pala, Gerber, Oquendo type guys. Then Malik Scott, Kevin Johnson etc.

Build him in slowly but through a mixture of styles, opponents, locations if possible seeif they can get him on some undercards around europe/america.

I wouldn't worry bout British/euro titles as such. they can hold you back as much as help your ranking due to the limitations of opponent guys seem to face for them. can get better opposition for a similar rates without the belts.

Airich's team are pretty dodgy.

he has had some ok results and performances but I expect him to go out very easily without much help inside one round. he wont offer much at all and will be looking for a nice spot on the canvas.

Joshua will be fighting Bakhtov after Arich:

http://www.fightnews.com/Boxing/joshua- ... ich-258614?

Joshua will be fighting Bakhtov after Arich:

That's another step-up - I watched Bakhtov fight Charr and I thought he was bossing him. Bakhtov is a good, gutsy fighter and will not be going down easy - plus he can punch too! He will be a danger-man for Joshua, despite his size.