Heavyweight Boxing

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 ,

Wlad missed a lot of shots when he had AJ hurt, I think his accuracy had been in decline for a few fights leading up to it. If a few of them had connected I wonder how different the landscape would look now.

I watched Wlad vs Fury today and Fury really did a great job in that fight in terms of movement and feints.

Wlad just followed him around the ring and wouldn’t commit to throwing shots.

It must be really tough for Wlad to not get the rematch to try put things right.

I’m not sure that version of Wlad could win the rematch other than go out on his shield and throw caution to the wind.

I wonder would Wlad lasted any longer or win his last two fights with Steward in the corner or someone other than banks.

Dropped after 5 seconds!

https://twitter.com/DAZNBoxing/status/1454548096193601548

Cannot stand listening to AJ being interviewed. He just comes across as so phoney. I get it, he runs his own shop, its him who likes spouting this pseudo intellectual nonsense. As another poster said, you would swear he invented the concept "hit but don't get hit, sweet science", etc... whilst also sh*ting on about wanting a war. Its like giving a basic lesson in jargon and lingo to casual fans, which in fairness are his main audience. He has this siege mentality thing, the world is out to get him, "Haters" and the like.

He is a guy who took up the sport late, was gifted a gold medal at the London olympics and has since been fast tracked to stardom and to be fair (for a lad with a decent medal haul as an amateur without its being a long amateur career) has done exceptionally well given his real lack of experience. So credit where credit is due. I don't know whether he is still green or whether he is at peak of his powers and just doesn't have it.

Looking at that Klitschko fight, how the hell did Wlad not finish it? That uppercut really turned it on its head. The AJ in the first few mins of that 5th round looked really good, but we know he can't sustain that intensity and aggression for long than 90 seconds without taking a breather. That is his critical flaw. He needs to drop the "I can box for 12 rounds and not get hit" nonsense, he isn't lomachenko with a glittering amateur career that he can revert back to. He needs to find a way of keeping an opponent at bay, and using his gas tank at optimal times when an opportunity presents itself. But this style is walking a tightrope for someone like AJ, he will be caught between two stools. Trying to reserve energy by boxing at range (which he will struggle to do against good opponents) whilst looking like he is lacking the aggression.

But I don't think he has/can develop the ring IQ to fight this way. He is one dimensional, has a game plan that he is unable to deviate from mid fight.

Interesting in that interview with Kugan (about 18:00 in), he said you need to ask his team what his plan was, he just "acts on the information". He said he had no idea how things were going. Now that just shows all you need to know about his ring IQ.