ANTHONY JOSHUA 22-0 (21)
JOSHUA HAS AN AURA ABOUT HIM. HE WALKS AND TALKS LIKE A HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION”
THOUGH his dominance has yet to be cemented, one thing cannot be denied: at heavyweight, Anthony Joshua is the undisputed star of the show. He is the biggest name, at least domestically, having been portrayed as the clean-cut heavyweight hero the world needs, and his training gear is awash with garish sponsor logos, a mark of his commercial power.
In terms of his boxing, the WBA, IBF and WBO champion is also the cleanest of the Big Three heavyweights, stylistically speaking. He doesn’t let it all hang out like Wilder; he doesn’t improvise nearly as well as Fury. Instead, what you get with Joshua, 29, is a disciplined and measured approach, one established on the Great Britain amateur boxing squad and then honed, under the watchful eye of coach Rob Mccracken, through 21 fights as a pro.
“Anthony Joshua is a beast and a nice kid,” says former IBF and WBO heavyweight champion Chris Byrd. “He’s six-foot-six and a great athlete. He reminds me of Jameel Mccline in a way.
“When he won that Olympic gold medal [in 2012], I didn’t see anything special. He was just okay. But to see him now, and his growth, is amazing. What came with it is confidence and power. He’s selling out stadiums because he has an aura about him now. He walks and talks like a heavyweight champion.”
Even so, one doesn’t have to look too hard to detect chinks in the Watford man’s armour. Muscle-bound and explosive, there has long been concern he will run out of ideas and fade late in fights (despite going some way to disproving this theory with an 11th-round knockout of Wladimir Klitschko in 2017). He has also been dropped by a Klitschko right hand, wobbled by a Dillian Whyte hook in 2015, and appeared to have issues with the combination punching of Alexander Povetkin for a few rounds in his last fight, before shutting the Russian down in round seven.
“He’s a big dude who works pretty upright,” says Booth. “I wouldn’t say he’s a power-puncher but he’s a strong puncher. He looks a little too muscle-restricted to be a true power-puncher with that snap at the end of a shot. But he’s certainly a very strong puncher at world-level. He’s proven that.
“He boxes energetically from an upright position, but I think his movements still look a little bit cumbersome.
“If I had someone fighting Joshua, I’d want someone who was capable of moving their head and their feet at the same time and be able to punch off this head and foot movement.
“I wouldn’t want them to be standing on that straight line with him and trading. You’d have them nullify his long bombs to get up close.”
In light of this, Joshua’s kryptonite hardly sounds like Deontay Wilder, an unapologetic freestyler who punches willy-nilly and forgets all about structure and form. But where there is fight-ending power, there is presumably a way. “Joshua, to me, is a better fighter than Wilder,” says Naazim Richardson, the long-time coach of Bernard Hopkins.
“He’s the more technically sound and schooled. But here’s the problem: damn near everybody Deontay Wilder fought was a better fighter than him. So that’s not a factor when it comes to this fight. Wilder can beat guys who are better than him. “I believe Wilder punches harder than [Wladimir] Klitschko, and I saw Klitschko rock Joshua. I also believe he punches harder than David Price, who they say knocked Joshua out in sparring.
“Every time I saw Mike Tyson hurt, he lost. Every time I see Joshua hurt in a fight, he damn near goes down. But when you see Wilder hurt, he still stands his ground. He’s never shown fear or apprehension.”
Of the three heavyweight kings, some will say the Joshua puzzle is the easiest to simplify and solve. He could end up being the best of the lot, but, for now, his well-drilled A-B-C approach is the language most easily understood by those with a knack for problem-solving.
“Most guys wouldn’t pick him because he’s six-six and athletic, but, for my style, I would definitely rather fight a guy like Joshua than Wilder or Fury,” says Byrd.
“The rangy guys like Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko were hard to fight. I know Joshua is big and rangy in his own way, but his style is different. He doesn’t know how to use his size all that well.”