WHERES STAFFORD????????

Is this STILL a man who would destroy Joe Frazier in 2 rounds....

 

he said that?

 

Multiple times.

He also said that AJ-Foreman was essentially a pick em.

 

I guess he based that off of AJ's cute smile nice teeth and awesome six pack.

 

I am here, to eat my crow. And especially to offer a shitload of excuses. So here goes

First of all, you guys were correct, I was wrong.

You claimed Joshua to beat easy meat for Bowes and Foremans, even though he had never been beaten. I picked him to be good enough to give them good fights, even though there was no evidence of him being capable of doing that. Turns out, you guys were right, based on what we know now.

The indications of weaknesses he might have (struggling with Whyte's punch and getting tagged by Povetkin's quick fists) turned out to be major flaws

"However"

First, Joshua has still beaten six top-10 contenders. We can claim they all have been useless, but he did beat Parker, who in turn beat Ruiz. So it is not like Joshua had been outclassed by a scrub, and in fact we don't know yet if Ruiz Jr is a total scrub. He looks like one, and he is modern guy, but he might be able to fight a bit. I am not suspecting him to be anything special though, I do believe this bout tells us more about Joshua than Ruiz.

But, these things do happen in heavyweight boxing. Lennox had his McCall fight, and Ruiz might definitely outwork McCall. Evander Holyfield needed a bogus call by Mills Lane not to suffer the same fate against Smokin' Bert Cooper. Joe Louis was destroyed by old Schmeling. It remains to be seen if Joshua is able to develop his tactics after this, or are his flaws such that they can't be corrected. In these days, we too often and too quickly think of the latter.

All in all, I'd say Joshua is a talented guy, and with his size, quick fists and respectable punching power he would have been a contender in any age and given a good tussle to almost anybody for some rounds. A good champion he is not, and right now the chances are he will never reach that level either. If he pulls a Lennox and goes to a seven-year undefeated streak from here (or Wlad's eleven years), all good for him

 

UGO, what happened to happened tonight is far more alarming what happened to Louis, Lewis, Holy, ect...

AJ looked like a man who doesn't know how to fight.

 

I do agree, but still, it was a single fight and single result. In boxing it sometimes happens that there are those days when nothing works, and still Joshua was pretty close of pulling out the victory in the third. Just like we can't proclaim a guy as legend after one fine performance, one embarrassing showing might not be the whole truth of the matter, either. Although in this case it might be

 

You're a fine fellow, UGO.

MTF

 

I haven’t see this fight yet but from what I’ve been reading and from what I’ve seen from AJ, this defeat sounds like it’s more in line with the first loss of Naseem Hamed than it does Lennox Lewis. With what AJ has shown us inside the ring as well as out of it he looks a lot more like the poser Hamed was who will disappear from the sport forever rather than go an a world class win streak like Lewis did.

 

It's why I fancied Povetkin to do him. No idea how to deal with that roll-in style.

Ruiz deserves credit as he got up to win, but I put that down to freshness too.

Povetkin and Wlad were badly worn...even Wlad was stopped, not KO'd.

Guys like Vitali knew a basic boxing move......STEP OFF TO YOUR SIDE.

It's the second move kids learn, right after Jab-Sway-Jab.

Jab, step off to your side, or step off and counter.

Not "Walk aimlessly backwards as fatty plods after you".

Ron Stander must be on the fucking sky phone to Jerry Quarry right now............

 

Joshua looked like a guy who knew he had been found out. He didn't thrash and flail like a guy who wanted to survive......like a guy who believed he had a right to be there. He behaved like Berkowitz the night the cops finally caught him........he was like.........."Hey.....what took you so long".

 

This should also put an end to the notion that anybody who is bigger than the likes of Tyson and Frazier would beat them due to size or height or whatever.

Joe Frazier and Mike Tyson in their primes beat the holy hell out of this crop of tall heavyweights.

 

I don't think anybody has ever claimed that anybody would beat Tyson or Frazier by merely being bigger

 

Not really. Hamed probably won 4, 5 rounds vs Barrera and made Barrera fight a very very tactical fight.

Ruiz just exposed that not only did Joshua have no business in there, he knew he had no business in there and didn't want to be there.

Joshua lucked out. He lucked out when Fury beat Wlad, lucked out when the IBF stripped Fury, lucked out when Glazkov blew out his ligaments and some fucking bum, some total total bum got the IBF belt, and was then tempted to England for Joshua to feast on.

People forget that......IT was Wlads, then Furys, then Glazkov was going to have it so it actually wound up with a 4th class contender bum.

He got Wlad when he was 40 and Povetkin when he was 39. He damn near lost those fights and Parker plain pussied out.

 

I had to google the name of the guy that got the IBF belt that Joshua was able to eat up.

Charles fucking unheard of Martin.

 

I agree. Lewis wasn't dominated for four rounds to the point that he virtually quit. Or was happy with the fight being stopped. That isn't a fluke and even though it's quite possible A.J will beat Ruiz in a rematch, that loss is going to scar him badly at some level.

I highly doubt he will go on a two year winning streak, let alone a seven or eleven year one, unless he flat refuses to fight a live body again.

 

If you watch the fight 2 or 3 times back to back he may have won 4 rounds

 

Yeah seriously at 4 or 5 rounds. The fight was not close at all. Barrera schooled him. Hamed won 2 rounds.

 

116-111
115-112
115-112

and the late harold lederman had it 115-112.












JIM

 

7-4-1 with the last round shared cos he had a point deducted.

SEVEN FOUR ONE.

JIM.

 

He was the house fighter, those scores are bullshit. He won 2 rounds.

I'd love to know what these 5 rounds are that he won, tell me which ones. Barrera schooled the shit out of him, made him look like a goofy amateur.

 

I remember McCrory scored it 118-113 and at the time I thought the even rounds were generous. Nas fan here as well, was rooting for him but I can't see a way you could give him four or five rounds.

 

I thought Joshua tepidly won the first two rounds and if Ruiz hadn’t got up from that knockdown there wouldn’t have been much criticism. Saying he got “outclassed for 6 rounds” is a little over the top. I thought he won the 5th as well.

 

Well two judges gave him 4 rounds and so did Harold Lederman.

 

People around here attack Wlad but if he ever got out of trouble he usually made a fist of things, pardon the pun.

He got through the 4th round with Peter, outboxed him till the 10th, got through that disaster and outboxed him over the final 2. Same in the Williamson fight, he got dropped, survived and boxed well within himself. If he got let off the hook he had brains enough to get back into the fight.

If AJ was any good, once Fatso let him off the hook he would have regrouped and done something. He still had a KD in the 3rd but he plainly never regrouped, made the same mistakes...over and over again and just allowed himself to be pushed about.

It was disconcerting....he should have flailed or run or done something like a man desperate to survive....

 

That's been essentially the underlying reasoning used incessantly here by the people who think Pinklon Thomas and Trevor Berbick were as shit at boxing as Joseph Parker or Eddie Chambers

 

On a technicality, Chambers and Parker come from two totally different eras.

One is of the Wlad era, the other is of the Joshua era, now known as the Taco Bell era.

Chambers might well have done OK against guys like Buster Mathis Jr or Bert Cooper.

You can pick almost any era where a prominent fighter would have been mashed by a lesser fighter of a previous era and use it in abstract to make a point.

Quick Tillis might well destroy Joe Parker but lose to Ortiz, or something along those lines.

 

I thought Ruiz won the first two rounds. Joshua didn't do much at all

 

Well I think you would agree that at SOME point size edge overcomes a skill edge. Thus it is a valid point for conversation if the size difference between, say, Tyson Fury and Joe Frazier is too big for Frazier to overcome.

Merely size doesn't help of course, if a guy can't box at ALL, he won't win. But I'd say Foreman's didn't beat Frazier only with his better skills, either.

So I don't think we, or anyone here,disagree with the basic principles. Our lines are in different positions though, which is why we discuss

 

I see no evidence that the average heavyweight is worse now than in Eddie Chamber's "day"