By Scott Gilfoid: Britain’s Anthony Joshua will be facing Kazakhstan’s Ivan Dychko on Friday in their Olympic super heavyweight semi-finals match in London, England. Joshua is coming off a 15-11 points decision victory over China’s Zhilei Zhang last Monday to get to the semi-finals bout.
Dychko looked really impressive beating Canadian Simon Kean by a lopsided score of 20-6 to get to the semi-finals bout.
Joshua was able to score a key knockdown of Zhang in the 2nd round of their fight and then hang on to win the fight after a furious rally by Zhang in the 3rd and final round. Although Joshua won the fight, you can make a very strong argument that he shouldn’t have been in the fight in the first place after winning a highly questionable 17-16 decision over Cuban Erislandy Savon last week. Few boxing fans felt that Joshua won that fight, as he was dominated in every round, especially the third round.
My take on the Joshua-Zhang fight was that I had Zhang winning by a narrow decision. He was the faster guy, the more flexible and the better boxer. Joshua looked musclebound, very tight in his upper body, and not able to throw combinations. He was mostly just throwing one punch at a time and looking like someone who’d spent too much time in the gym lifting weights. The flexibility in Joshua’s upper body just isn’t there. I mean, he looks like he’d win a bodybuilding competition but as far as throwing punches and showing power, he’s lacking. Joshua looked like he could punch a hole through Zhang, but he couldn’t because he’s really not a big puncher. The knockdown that Joshua got off Zhang was a flash knockdown where Zhang was coming forward and he got knocked off balance. He was never hurt from that shot or any shots from Joshua.
I see Dychko as having an excellent chance of beating Joshua. He’s faster, and he’s more of a skilled puncher compared to Joshua.
The fighter that Joshua reminds me a lot of is British heavyweight Larry Olubamiwo. They’re both heavily muscled, not huge punchers, and really, really tight with their upper body. To me, Joshua seems lighter version of Olubamiwo.
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