McCrory thinks Wladimir has 2 years left at the top; sees Joshua taking over

By Boxing News - 04/26/2014 - Comments

joshua536By Scott Gilfoid: Sky Sports boxing analyst Glenn McCrory believes that IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (61-3, 51 KO’s) is down to his last two years of him being at the top of the heavyweight division. McCrory expects other heavyweights to take over the sport by 2016, one of them being British heavyweight Anthony Joshua. McCrory is very high on the lumbering 6’6″ Joshua, who won a gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics, and thinks that Joshua will take over the division.

“In the next two years there will be a new chapter in the heavyweight division,” McCrory said to Sky Sports. “It’s only a matter of time befor eour own Anthony Joshua comes in to take over the heavyweight division himself, which I’m sure he will. He’s the best prospect I’ve seen in heavyweight boxing since Lennox Lewis and is looking formidable in every department.”

Joshua won the gold medal in the London Olympics with two very controversial wins over Erislandy Savon and Roberto Cammarelle. A lot of boxing fans saw Joshua losing both of those fights. Whatever the case, Joshua hasn’t looked particularly fast as a prospect, and his defense is pretty much nonexistent. If Joshua is the next Lennox Lewis then he’s going to need to improve by leaps and bounds from how he’s performing recently, because Joshua resembled a younger and slightly taller version of Frank Bruno. Joshua has the same bulky muscles that Bruno had, but he doesn’t seem to be as heavy handed as Bruno was early in his career.

WLadimir says he can fight another 10 years, and he’s highly motivated at watching 49-year-old IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins find success. McCrory obviously disagrees with Wladimir about how much time he has left at the top. McCrory is probably right about Wladimir not having that much time left, but I disagree with him on who will be the ones taking over. Joshua, I believe, is going to be a good gatekeeper type heavyweight, but he’ll be exposed against the quicker, stronger, and more athletic heavyweights like Deontay Wilder. Joshua gets hit way too easy, and Deontay would nail him with shots before Joshua had time to get his huge arms in position to throw a punch. As you know, Deontay has one punch power, so I can’t see Joshua beating him. This isn’t the London Olympics, and I expect Joshua to have big time stamina problems once he’s forced to carry all that muscle for more than 4 rounds.



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