Hearn expects Anthony Joshua to be better after sparring with Klitschko

By Boxing News - 08/20/2014 - Comments

joshua22By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua (7-0, 7 KOs) lucked out with IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko (62-3, 52 KOs) giving him the opportunity to spar with him for 10 days to help get ready for his fight next month on September 6th against challenger Kubrat Pulev (20-0, 11 KOs) at the O2 World Arena in Hamburg, Germany.

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is pretty excited about Joshua getting the opportunity to work with Wladimir and possibly pick up some training tips while in his camp. Hearn believes Joshua will be better for the work he puts in with Wladimir.

Whether Joshua can improve or not based on 10 days of sparring sessions with Wladimir is unclear. Joshua’s main flaws are things that he has no real control of with his lack of snap on his punches, his arm punching, and heavy muscular frame. These are things that are beyond change as far as what Wladimir can teach him.

“Well it’s priceless isn’t it,” Hearn said to Skysports.com. “He’s arguably one of the top heavyweights of all time, Wladimir Klitschko, certainly the top heavyweight in the world right now. They had their first spar yesterday and I haven’t spoken to Anthony yet, but the experience is just wonderful.”

Joshua will be fighting on September 13th on the Scott Quigg card in Manchester. There isn’t an opponent picked out yet for the fight, but one would hope they pick out a better than his 7 previous ones.

Olympic Gold medalists are supposed to have their careers improved to where they’re facing high quality opponents by their 10th fight, but I’m not sure that’s going to be the case with Joshua judging by the type of opposition he’s been facing lately. Joshua will be fighting on October 13th at the O2 Arena in London. His opponent for that fight is unknown as well.

As far as improvement goes, I’d like to see Joshua drop about 15 pounds of muscle so that he could move better around the ring. If you look at how Wladimir fights, he’s moves like a middleweight on a 245 pound frame. This allows him to avoid taking punishment against the bigger punchers in the division. With Joshua, he’s flat-footed and doesn’t move well.

The muscle on his upper body has got to be the thing that’s slowing him down. If he were to get out on the track and run twenty 100 meter wind sprints daily, and stop lifting weights, I could see him getting lighter and faster on his feet. But unfortunately, I don’t see Joshua doing that. If anything, I see him adding even more muscle and becoming slower as he starts to age.



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