By Scott Gilfoid: IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (16-0, 16 KOs) says he’s happy with any of the big three opponents that his promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport has picked out for him to choose from for his first title defense on June 25 at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Hearn has a mix of old veterans and an undefeated but badly flawed 2012 U.S Olympian in Dominic Breazeale (17-0, 15 KOs). The other two are former WBC heavyweight champion Bernane Stiverne (25-1-2, 21 KOs) and Erick Molina (25-3, 19 KOs), a fighter known for having been knocked out by WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder last year.
If were predict who Joshua will be fighting, I think it’ll be either Breazeale or Molina. The fight will likely be televised in the United States as part of Joshua’s new TV deal with one of the cable giants, HBO or Showtime. Stiverne is probably the best known of the three candidates for Joshua’s next fight, but he’s also kind of long in the tooth and putting a fight together with him and his promoter could prove to be difficult.
“He mentioned some opponents, some undefeated, some that have been beaten but are tough – so it’s really what I want, what he wants and, most importantly, what the public want,” said Joshua to skysports.com. “They all sound good to me. We’ve got Stiverne who unfortunately got beat – no one likes to lose. But he’s very tough and can take a beating.”
In think the three choices are horrible. If it were me, I’d tell Hearn to go back to the drawing board and find some talented heavyweights rather than Deontay Wilder’s leftovers, which is what Joshua is getting with Molina and Stiverne. Breazeale, 6’7”, looks like a knockout waiting to happen.
If Joshua is going to leave it up to the UK public to select from the three choices offered up, then he could be waiting for a long time because none of them stand out. They’re all quite mediocre choices. I think they’re all awful. Joshua is better off fighting guys not on the three-man list that Hearn put together. I think Joshua should fight the likes of Carlos Takam, Joseph Parker, Kubrat Pulev, David Haye or Jarrell Miller.
Those are all fighters ranked in the top 15 of the International Boxing Federation’s rankings. If the idea is for Joshua to fight one of the IBF’s top 15 contenders, then he needs to lose Eric Molina because he’s not rated in the IBF’s top 15. He’s ranked in the other sanctioning bodies’ top 15. I wouldn’t want to see Joshua fight Molina, Stiverne or Breazeale because they’re all very flawed. Breazeale has a controversial win over Fred Kassi from last year that looks bad. Breazeale never went back and fought Kassi again to clear up that controversy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcvKQydyzDY
“So we’ll slowly leak a few names and see what works,” said Joshua. “Let’s just get my first defence underway, whoever out of those three names or other names in the hat. And then look and see what the future holds.”
What’s Joshua talking about with this “we’ll slowly leak a few names and see what works.” Earth to Joshua; I think the names have already been leaked by Hearn. He already revealed the three less than spectacular heavyweights, and they’re all terrible as far as I’m concerned. If Joshua is waiting for there to be a huge amount of love from the fans about the three candidates, I think he’s going to be waiting for a long, long time. The fact that the UK boxing public is silent about the three candidate that Hearn has released suggests that the fans don’t like those choices.