Boxing

[Bender]

Joshua even without the titles has fights v Wilder and Fury to go for even if they are just to genereate box office ££$$

[Doc_Piptorious]

Joshua even without the titles has fights v Wilder and Fury to go for even if they are just to genereate box office ££$$

And that is exactly the sort of thing that further devalues the division. A fighter who lost the titles being the a bigger draw in non title fights than the belt holder.

It just becomes an exercise in protecting the golden geese rather than being champion meaning anything.

I even disagree with Joshua having the option of an automatic rematch. That option should not be an option when a champion loses so clearly. You lose your belts in an emphatic manner, then you should have to earn your way back to getting a shot. I know that is a very idealistic view and not how things actually work, especially for the fighters who have a big promoter to help gloss over losses and to hype belts only when the cash cow fighter has them.

Proper order now would be for the winner of Fury/Wilder (assuming there is not yet another need to pull out of a fight for that one, and not even sure which one of them I think is the more likely to do it) to get a crack at Usyk as the next number one contender.

[Bender]

And re-matches stop all respective divisions from being unified

[Doc_Piptorious]

And re-matches stop all respective divisions from being unified

Not always, but would agree they do contribute towards more fractured divisions in some cases.

[spud_gun]

And re-matches stop all respective divisions from being unified

Joshua was a unified champion.

Undisputed is what you meant? Rarer than hens teeth in boxing.

[Buzzo]

I watched that last night and it seemed everything people predicted happened and that Joshua wasn’t prepared for it.

I wouldn’t fight any Ukrainian tbf. I reckon 90% of them are capable of fighting for world title belts. Imagine the mentality that 100’s of years of hardship develops. They don’t give a ****.

I reckon AJ is ‘scared’ of getting hit. Worried about his chin. He kept trying to fight from distance but was absorbing so much and losing round after round as he did so. He never truly engaged.

That’s the lay punters view anyway.

[spud_gun]

I think that fight has to be considered when thinking about match ups against Ward or similar types of opponents. Toney knows every defensive trick in the book was a master counter puncher and at that stage was undefeated and was still in good shape. It's a shame none of Benn, Watson and Eubank got in the ring with Jones, Hopkins and Toney. I think, from memory Mike McCallum had quite a few of the good names on the UK and US on his resume.

I think we all know the reason why Benn and Eubank never got into a ring with Jones, Hopkins or Toney.

We'd have seen Benn exposed again for the crude slugger he was. Toney vs Benn would have been similar to the beating Toney dished out to Iran Barkley.

Watson would probably have had the best chance out of the three Brits but tragically never got the chance

[Doc_Piptorious]

I think we all know the reason why Benn and Eubank never got into a ring with Jones, Hopkins or Toney.

We'd have seen Benn exposed again for the crude slugger he was. Toney vs Benn would have been similar to the beating Toney dished out to Iran Barkley.

Watson would probably have had the best chance out of the three Brits but tragically never got the chance

Yep, they were not dumb enough to want to be on the wrong end of a one sided hiding.

[fidget]

Throwing the wildcard of Joe Calzaghe into the mix. Fought over half his career with hands so damaged he rarely put full power into his punches.

[marcus50bucks]

Joshua is a complete fraud and has been found out. AGAIN. He's like the Bruno of his time.
I just don't get why a big man like Joshua would slim down to fight a smaller man. He should have stayed big and completely blow away the smaller man. That's what Fury would do. Usyk was brilliant. Didn't put a foot wrong.

YNWA

I said on rawk that he has too many yes men around him telling him how great he is when in reality he isn't. Too many people were sleeping on Usyk and didn't give him the respect he deserves. Anyone who has followed his career will have known his style would give AJ fits. He's elusive, fleet footed and throws punches from angles. His lateral movement and feints was always going to give AJ, who is stiff, has poor foot work and only moves forward in straight lines, problems.

Usyk's southpaw jab totally confused AJ. He used left straight and looping left hook off it. That's why AJ didn't come forward and bully Usyk like all the "experts" were saying he should have done . Not one of the so called expert analysts, commentators etc said a single word about a southpaw vs orthodox dynamics which is basic boxing. When you’re the southpaw, if you get your foot on the outside of the orthodox guy, you shorten the path to your straight left, and you lengthen the path to his straight right and your jab hand is closer to him and therefore you can hit him from an angle where he can’t hit your back. That is the southpaw game one on one. Usyk was doing that all night. He was knocking down Aj’s lead jab which took it completely out and he was out of the way from Aj’s power shot. He was constantly changing and circling. AJ didn't have an answer. The rounds that he lost is when he stood inside and went toe to toe and AJ caught him a few times.

The rematch will be no different. AJ's style cannot beat Usyk imo. He has literally just got a punchers chance.

I do think Usyk would give Fury problems, though. Tyson has clear foot speed, co-ordination advantage over the likes of Joshua, Wilder etc. However, Usyk can match Fury in foot speed and co-ordination and can neutralise the advantage that Fury has over the others in co-ordination. I would sill back Fury (not being biased ) to win but it would be an interesting match up.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Throwing the wildcard of Joe Calzaghe into the mix. Fought over half his career with hands so damaged he rarely put full power into his punches.

Prime Jones Jr beats him for me and beats him by stopping him. Jones Jr was badly faded when Calzaghe beat him, and his reflexes were shot at that point. Prime Jones puts him down early just like faded Jones did, only Prime Jones would then go and finish the job


Ward schools Calzaghe imho. Ward would have too many gears to go through each time Calzaghe tried to up his own game. Ward is a genuine P4P great in my eyes and operated at a much higher level than Calzaghe. Calzaghe is not going to out think Ward, he is not going to be able to blitz him with speed, he is not going to frighten him with power, he is in no world going to out skill him.

Prime Hopkins vs Calzaghe would have been an interesting one, certainly more interesting than when they did meet. Think Hopkins was 43 or 44 when Calzaghe beat him on points. Was still a good version of Hopkins despite his age, but a younger him vs Calzaghe at the same age would have been very tight.


Calzaghe vs peak Toney. Going to go with a potential draw in that, and think it would be a similar type of fight as when Toney fought first fought Mike McCallum. Think sometimes styles make fights and Calzaghe's style of fight is one that on the right night would have bothered Toney imo.


Probably sounds like I don't think a lot of Joe though. The truth is I see him as being on a tier above the likes of Benn, Eubank or Watson but a tier or two below peak Jones jr, or Ward.

[Doc_Piptorious]

I said on rawk that he has too many yes men around him telling him how great he is when in reality he isn't. Too many people were sleeping on Usyk and didn't give him the respect he deserves. Anyone who has followed his career will have known his style would give AJ fits. He's elusive, fleet footed and throws punches from angles. His lateral movement and feints was always going to give AJ, who is stiff, has poor foot work and only moves forward in straight lines, problems.

Usyk's southpaw jab totally confused AJ. He used left straight and looping left hook off it. That's why AJ didn't come forward and bully Usyk like all the "experts" were saying he should have done . Not one of the so called expert analysts, commentators etc said a single word about a southpaw vs orthodox dynamics which is basic boxing. When you’re the southpaw, if you get your foot on the outside of the orthodox guy, you shorten the path to your straight left, and you lengthen the path to his straight right and your jab hand is closer to him and therefore you can hit him from an angle where he can’t hit your back. That is the southpaw game one on one. Usyk was doing that all night. He was knocking down Aj’s lead jab which took it completely out and he was out of the way from Aj’s power shot. He was constantly changing and circling. AJ didn't have an answer. The rounds that he lost is when he stood inside and went toe to toe and AJ caught him a few times.

The rematch will be no different. AJ's style cannot beat Usyk imo. He has literally just got a punchers chance.

I do think Usyk would give Fury problems, though. Tyson has clear foot speed, co-ordination advantage over the likes of Joshua, Wilder etc. However, Usyk can match Fury in foot speed and co-ordination and can neutralise the advantage that Fury has over the others in co-ordination. I would sill back Fury (not being biased ) to win but it would be an interesting match up.

Good take on things.


Staying at mid range killed Joshua against a leftie imo. By staying at midrange round after round he allowed Usyk to pretty much set the tempo and it played to all of Usyk's strengths. Faster hands, better reflexes, more fluid boxing style, lovely footwork all came into play at mid range along with Usyk not having to work hard when he wanted to go inside and back out again. Also meant Joshua's size advantage meant very little as he was in too close to use a jab with any effect and too far out to try and attempt to work on the inside.

No rightie likes taking on a good leftie, but you still do not make it easy for te leftie and you stick to the fundamentals until you can time the leftie. Usyk keeping his front foot on the outside is a good point, but a rightie can keep his foot on the outside against a southpaw to control a fight too which Joshua did not try to do once. Joshua did not try to even mirror Usyk's stance in order to have any sort of chance to compete to get a front foot on the outside.

Usyk on the other hand mirrored Joshua time after time and then would either throw a jab (often just a single jab), a high hook or a cross and then get his feet into the dominant position, and even worse there were times when he just literally was let walk right up and take the dominant position.

Agree on the Fury/Usyk take. Usyk can do what Fury does better than other heavies, only better, but Fury for me beats him by fighting ugly and spoiling for 12 rounds. Think Usyk would give Fury more problems during the fight than Wlad did though. Think Usyk would be a more difficult cat to get mind games to work against. To paraphrase Josey Wales "Usyk has got crazy eyes"

[fidget]

Probably sounds like I don't think a lot of Joe though. The truth is I see him as being on a tier above the likes of Benn, Eubank or Watson but a tier or two below peak Jones jr, or Ward.

A fair assessment. I saw him make his debut on the Lewis Bruno undercard and really enjoyed his career.
Can’t think of any other UK boxer apart from Terry Marsh who retired undefeated.

[Doc_Piptorious]

A fair assessment. I saw him make his debut on the Lewis Bruno undercard and really enjoyed his career.
Can’t think of any other UK boxer apart from Terry Marsh who retired undefeated.

Calzaghe's record, when picked apart with the cold eyes of hindsight, does stack up well. Plenty of names on his record that get scoffed at a little bit but that nobody was making fun of before Calzaghe beat them.

In some ways his record is a little like that of Lennox Lewis in that respect. After Lewis had beaten the likes of Tua and Golota with some ease, people tried to play them down as being easy wins, but before any of them faced Lewis they were being lauded as genuine threats to anyone in the division.

Calzaghe I think had a lot of the same going on at times when people were trying to diss who he had faced and beaten. I know I was guilty a few times of trying to dismiss him, mainly because he beat fighters I liked lol, but he is easily one of the best British boxers of all time, and in my lifetime the only British boxer I have seen that was operating at a higher level than him was the afore mentioned Lennox Lewis.

Josh Taylor might be the one to challenge him for being the second best British boxer I have seen in my lifetime though if he works his way through a few more quality contenders and Taylor might well have a shout at retiring undefeated too.

[Zapater]

Usyk's southpaw jab totally confused AJ. He used left straight and looping left hook off it. That's why AJ didn't come forward and bully Usyk like all the "experts" were saying he should have done . Not one of the so called expert analysts, commentators etc said a single word about a southpaw vs orthodox dynamics which is basic boxing. When you’re the southpaw, if you get your foot on the outside of the orthodox guy, you shorten the path to your straight left, and you lengthen the path to his straight right and your jab hand is closer to him and therefore you can hit him from an angle where he can’t hit your back. That is the southpaw game one on one. Usyk was doing that all night. He was knocking down Aj’s lead jab which took it completely out and he was out of the way from Aj’s power shot. He was constantly changing and circling. AJ didn't have an answer. The rounds that he lost is when he stood inside and went toe to toe and AJ caught him a few times.
:

I'll try to find and post the video where Marquez and Manny discuss this. It's really good - I think it's the face to face before their 3rd fight on HBO. It's also funny because they're demonstrating live in their limited English. On the subject of that, Canelo's English seems to be coming along, describing Plant as insecure.

Josh Taylor might be the one to challenge him for being the second best British boxer I have seen in my lifetime though if he works his way through a few more quality contenders and Taylor might well have a shout at retiring undefeated too.

I think it depends what some other fighters do and which fights he has. I see Mikey Garcia is continuing at welterweight. If he dropped down, I think he'd take care of Taylor. Could also depend if Taylor wants to move to welterweight because there are some tough fights there.