Heavyweight Boxing

Hard to even fathom that someone could be more cringe inducing than Wilder but AJ out done him at the end,

You can see why Fury has never been worried about him

It sound crazy but the way AJ is all over the shop recently i would actually love to see the rematch with Whyte , As limited as Whyte is i think he would really try to put it on AJ & see what AJ really has left in the tank ,

I think Fury will be more the puzzle for Usyk

A fascinating fight. I hope we see it - this is boxing though so we'll probably get a Usyk Joshua trilogy and Fury fighting a series of cans.

^^^ If Ruiz had shown up in shape he'd have caught up to Joshua a few times and would have beaten him again.

But Wilder likely would have been taken out far earlier had Joshua been connecting and following up.

Fury was quite poor in the finishing sense. Took him too many rds to put away a fighter that was gassing badly for rds.

I still think Wilder-AJ is a 50/50 three rds toss up

There won’t be any trenches for AJ or Wilder. Either lands clean and it’s lights out.

but yes, Wilder has more fight/gusto.

AJ refusal to answer on the game plan says a lot to me,

I reckon the plan was to start boxing but then lay it on Usyk but once he caught tagged in the 4th i think he didn't have the confidence to stay inside and try to hurt him, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt & say i don't think AJ was afraid of getting knocked out i think he is afraid of tiring out

There is something about him lately where you just don't get the sense of fire in him, Even his 20 second bad man rant at the end of that interview had no soul to it, it was like it was badly scripted ,

For example that one 30 second clip that went around pre Fury v Wilder 3 where Fury is asked to give Wilder a massage & he says "i'm going to smash your **** face in you prick, How's that for a message"

Yes its just words & some will say not needed but you could sense a real fire & stubborn determination from him it summed up the how Fury was in the ring seconds before the first bell staring a hole in Wilder still telling him the same thing & determined to do it, While knowing & accepting he is going to have to get through so dark moments in there to achive it ,

AJ for me tries the humble wise man sh*t but does it out so much he has started to believe it so he get's stuck in that "zone" , He doesn't enter the ring with that fire or malice , he's not in there for a proper fight so when the fight started to get away from him he couldn't dig deep., He needs to find that switch again

I don't think AJ has the tank. Watched the 5th round against Vlad again and he started great, dropped him and then gassed badly to the point that he nearly got stopped himself. AJ can only sustain big offence for half a round at a time. Never really seen him keep pressure on anyone for multiple consecutive rounds. Standing far away and jabbing doesnt count.

Hes a strange fighter because he has had a few late stoppages after looking knackered in the previous couple of rounds. Hes so big I guess he has to manage the tank.

Rumours he got sparked sparring before the fight wasn't there?

I really enjoyed that fight at the time. I was up for Wlad and my friends were up for AJ. Some serious excitement in those two rounds.

At the time and I suppose I still am now , I was impressed AJ got back into the fight and won it.

I was thinking Wlad was done in the 5th then heard and seen the left hook Froch mentioned later that round and was buzzing again.

Didn't watch the interview and won't as I hate them long format ones.

However on the gameplan point my own theory is that Joshua simply doesn't want to admit that he was badly advised and further to that he doesn't have the wherewithal to rectify or even recognise if things aren't working as planned himself.

So basically he doesn't want to hang McCracken out to dry and also doesn't want to admit that he himself hasn't a clue how to best fight his fights and furthermore can't recognise if he's losing.

He bought wholesale into the box and move, a good jab can take you round the world nonsense. And it's been laid bare before him that tis only a pipe dream against decent opposition.

I used to giggle when himself & his teams they mention how he went off change things up & was bale to beat Ruiz thinking they knew the joke

But Hearn & AJ is still using that as an example as to how he can beat Usyk so they must actually believe that crook of sh*t, As someone said above it shows AJ doesn't really have clue & just listens to what his team says, Sure he said in his interview he doesn't really understand scoring ??? WTF ..this is someone who won an Olympic gold medal , He either taken way to many shots already or on some strong stuff,

The reason he beat Ruiz in the rematch is because Ruiz made an absolute pig of himself remember this is a man who was in very poor shape to begin with , he was a utter mess coming into the fight, So much so as soon as the fight was over his trainer left him ,

For Aj ,his team & his promoter to believe there clever changes are the reason he won that fight are delusional, AJ also looked scared as hell over the full 12 rounds ,

For the life of me i never understand why a reporter doesn't even mention to them the absolute hack of Ruiz for that rematch ,