By Allan Fox: Unbeaten heavyweight Dominic Breazeale (17-0, 15 KOs) is giving himself a good chance of beating IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (16-0, 16 KOs) in their fight on June 25 at the O2 Arena in London, England. Breazeale isn’t too worried about being an underdog in this fight with the oddsmakers.
Breazeale believes that the fight with the 2012 Olympic gold medalist Joshua comes down to whichever guy lands first, and he plans on getting to Joshua first rather than waiting for him to connect with one of his big rights, Joshua’s last opponent Charles Martin waited too long to throw his own punches and got knocked out in the 2nd round last December.
Martin let Joshua be first, and it cost him the fight when Joshua dropped him with a big right hand.
“We’re two knockout artists so whoever lands first is going to win,” Breazeale said. “I’ll go with the game plan, of course. My trainer, Manny Robles, has done a great job developing a game plan during our training camp. I’ll hit him hard, hit him strong, hit him with everything,” said Breazeale to skysports.com.
It makes good sense for Breazeale to land his shots first because he waited too much in his last two fights against Amir Mansour and Fred Kassi, and he struggled in both of those fights. Breazeale was fortunate to get a victory over Kassi last September, because that fight looked to be a clear loss for Breazeale in the minds of many boxing fans. Breazeale stopped Mansour after the 43-year-old suffered a jaw injury and didn’t answer the bell for the sixth round.
Breazeale is a smart fighter, and he has analyzed by now what he must do for him to defeat the 6’6” Joshua. In looking at the 26-year-old Joshua’s 16 fights as a pro, the one constant that plays into the end results for the fight is that his opponents generally let him be first when it comes to throwing punches. Joshua takes advantage of that by hurting his opponents and then jumping on them to finish them off with a flurry of shots.
Breazeale cannot let the same thing happen if he’s to have a chance of beating Joshua. He’s got to get his punches off irst and he must keep throwing punches. It’s not enough to just be first. Breazeale must be first and continue to throw punches to keep from winding up a big 6’7” punching bag for Joshua to pound on until he takes him out.
Breazeale will still likely lose even if he fights the perfect fight, but at least he’ll be increasing his chances of success if he fights smart and does the right thing at all times. This is a clash where Breazeale will need to be perfect for him to beat Joshua. If he makes a mistake in any one area, Joshua will capitalize on that by taking him out with his big power shots.
“I am excited. I am ready to be victorious on June 25,” said Breazeale. “I am an opportunist and if I see an opportunity, I am going to take advantage of it. If he exposes something or shows a weakness of some sort, I plan to take advantage of it.”