Sounding indifferent last Saturday night, Anthony Joshua said he wants to fight whoever the boxing fans want him to face for his next fight, which is obviously Tyson Fury.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn says he’s going to start negotiating with Fury’s promoter Bob Arum on Monday to finalize their deal for the Joshua – Fury match in 2021.
Hearn is already predicting that Joshua is going to break Fury down and knock him out as he did against the ancient-looking Pulev last Saturday.
The problem is, Fury isn’t as old as the hills, and he’s not going to make the same stupid mistakes that Pulev made in fighting Joshua on the inside and failing to nullify his bread & butter punch, his uppercuts, which he repeatedly threw.
Does Joshua want Fury fight?
The wishy-washy way that Joshua talked while addressing the media last Sunday, he clearly doesn’t seem excited at the prospects of fighting Fury.
Also, I think Joshua wanted to be fawned over by the press and begged to fight Fury, and that wasn’t going to happen.
After the lackluster performance, Joshua put in against the Quadragenarian Kubrat Pulev, the media knew better than to beg Joshua to face Fury, because it’s likely to end badly for AJ.
Fury is fighting at a much higher level right now than Joshua, and the fight could be just as much of a mismatch as the Gypsy King’s rematch with Deontay Wilder last February.
Although Hearn repeatedly says Joshua vs. Fury heavyweight match-up will be for the undisputed championship, that might not be the case.
Usyk will need to be dealt with
The World Boxing Organization will no longer let Joshua and Hearn have exceptions to bypass WBO mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk, as the sanctioning body has already given AJ two in allowing him to take the rematch with Andy Ruiz Jr in December 2019, and then last Saturday’s fight with Kubrat Pulev. Joshua can’t continue to circumvent his responsibilities in dealing with Usyk.
It’s already pathetic that Usyk has been waiting since 2018, but it’ll be a joke if Joshua doesn’t face him at all in 2021. If Joshua does that, you won’t be able to take him seriously as the WBO belt-holder.
Does Joshua want to be given preferential treatment to hold onto the WBO belt to use as a prop to embellish his credentials with the casual boxing fans?
So either Joshua vacates his WBO title and faces Fury with just three of the four world title fights on the line or he takes the time out to defend against Usyk, as he obviously should if he’s going to take seriously the idea of becoming the undisputed champion.
Pulev looked incredibly old
IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Joshua knocked out Kubrat Pulev last Saturday night at the Wembley Arena in London, England to raise his career-record to 24-1 with 22 knockouts. Pulev looked so incredibly old at feeble at 39, and he appeared as old Mike Tyson, but with less physical skills.
The big Bulgarian only threw a small handful of right hands in the fight, and that’s not because he was afraid.
Age has crept up on Pulev, and he doesn’t have it anymore, which is a good thing for Joshua, as he was something awful last night. It was an even worst performance by Joshua than in his previous match against Andy Ruiz Jr in Saudi Arabia.
Anyway, Joshua was given credit for four knockdowns against Pulev, and he probably should have been a third-round knockout victory after Kubrat turned his back on AJ while getting worked over.
The referee was having a bad day in the office, missing calls, and failing to address a lot of rabbit punches that Pulev was braining Joshua with throughout the contest.
“Since he came into the office, he wanted to be the undisputed champion of the world,” Hearn said to Sky Sports about Joshua wanting to be the unified heavyweight champion since he inked with Matchroom in 2013.
“We’re going to be friendly, we’re going to be nice. We know what we have to do. Starting from tomorrow, we make the Tyson Fury fight straight away.
Should Usyk step aside – again – for AJ?
It’s going to be interesting to see how Hearn is able to work a deal to have WBO mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk (18-0, 13 KOs) to step aside and let Joshua face Fury TWICE in 2021.
I don’t see how that works in Usyk’s favor to let Joshua bypass him to go straight into a fight against Fury next year.
If you’re Usyk, will you make more money fighting Fury if he winds up as the WBO champion after his two fights with Joshua in 2021? I don’t think Usyk will make more money against Fury.
Also, Fury is the type of guy that may just vacate his WBO title if he doesn’t wish to fight Usyk. We’ve seen Fury vacate before, so you can’t trust him.
If Hearn and Joshua want to give Usyk a step aside deal, they’re probably going to need to make it in the $5 million range for it to make sense for him to let AJ fight Fury.
The money that Usyk would make from fighting Joshua in 2021, and then facing him a second time after he beats him would be HUGE.
That’s why it makes no sense at all for Usyk to step aside for the Joshua-Fury fights to take place unless he’s given many millions.
Even $5 million might too small a number. If you’re Usyk, $10 million makes sense, but nothing less than that. That’s the kind of money Usyk would be getting if he were to fight Joshua, beat him, and then face him in an immediate rematch.
“It’s the only fight to be made in boxing. It’s the biggest fight in boxing. It’s the biggest fight in British boxing history,” said Hearn about the Joshua vs. Fury fight.
“I know he [Joshua] wants it. He is the best heavyweight in the world, I promise you. He’ll break him down, he’ll knock him out, but for me, less talk, more action,” said Hearn.
Hearn: Joshua-Fury = “biggest fight in boxing”
As far as Hearn’s comment about Joshua vs. Fury being the “Biggest fight in boxing,” I don’t agree with that. Joshua – Fury are both British heavyweights, and a fight between them would mostly great huge interest from UK fans.
You can argue that for American boxing fans, there would be more interest in a fight between Deontay Wilder and Joshua than Fury-Joshua.
Hearn is also wrong about Joshua breaking Fury down and stopping him. Joshua is starting to look like he’s on the decline at 30.
AJ can still punch, but his stamina is horrible, and he only fights hard for a small period of time there than for a full three minutes of each round.
As we observed last night against Pulev, Joshua fought hard in brief spurts, and then would shut down like a big engine turning off. If Pulev wasn’t so old, weight-drained, and over-the-hill himself, he would have taken advantage of it.
Joshua doesn’t look nearly as good as he used to four years ago when he was knocking guys out left and right, and was on the top of his game. Nowaday’s, Joshua’s stamina isn’t what it needs to be for him to beat top guys, and his confidence is gone.
