By Scott Gilfoid: IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs) will knockout WBC champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs) within 3 rounds, says Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn.
It’s a fight that Hearn is looking forward to greatly, but he believes his fighter Joshua will make quick work of Wilder when the time comes for the two of them to face each other.
Joshua and Wilder both have fights that they need to get past first before they battle it out in 2018. Joshua will be defending his titles next month against his IBF mandatory Kubrat Pulev (25-1, 13 KOs) on October 28 at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. Joshua is a huge favorite to win that fight.
Wilder has a much more dangerous fight ahead of him against unbeaten Luis “King Kong” Ortiz (27-0, 23 KOs) on November 4 on Showtime Championship Boxing at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Wilder is the favorite in that fight, but it’s still a very dangerous one due to Ortiz’s size, power and his boxing experience in the amateur ranks in Cuba.
“It’s a great fight. Two very explosive, young, fast heavyweights who can punch,” said Hearn to Fighthub in talking about the Wilder vs. Joshua fight next year. ”Don’t blink! AJ inside three rounds.”
Hearn needs to realize that Joshua isn’t near half as good as he thinks he is. It’s going to be a shocker for Hearn when Joshua gets knocked out for the first time. I don’t know if Wilder will be the one to do it, but someone is going to KO Joshua. All it’ll take is Joshua getting tired and not having a quick enough recovery ability to come back from it. If Joshua gasses out against Deontay, the fight will end immediately. Deontay will put him out of his misery.
Wilder vs. Joshua is a fight that could go either way. Joshua looked awful against Wladimir Klitschko last April in running out of gas after the 6th, and getting dropped. All that useless muscle that Joshua has been carrying around since he turned pro turned out to be a real heavy anchor for him against Klitschko. It wasn’t surprising to see Joshua fade so quickly, because he trains more like a body builder than a fighter. Joshua built for boxing. He’s built more for hanging out at the beach, relaxing and just taking it easy with games of volley ball. If Wilder pushes Joshua hard, he’ll gas out and be easy pickings for him.
Anthony Joshua doesn’t have one-punch power. That’s his main problem. For the 6’5” Joshua to beat Deontay, he’s going to need to trap him against the ropes and unload on him with a flurry of punches. That’s probably not going to happen, because Wilder tends to stay in motion when he’s facing guys that can punch. Deontay can move for a full 12 rounds if needed. But if Joshua hits Deontay with a big shot to get his attention, then you can believe that he’s going to start firing back his huge right hands.
I don’t think Joshua can take more than one or two of Deontay’s big right hands before he’s forced to take a knee like he did against Wladimir. Joshua should have been knocked out by Wladimir in their fight on April 29, but Wladimir thought he could still win by just boxing Joshua instead of looking to finish him off once he got him hurt. It’s got to be one of the biggest mistakes that Wladimir has ever made during his career. Without his trainer Emanuel Steward to give him instructions that he would actually listen to, Wladimir went back to his safety first instincts and gave away he fight by not going for the kill.
“[Ortiz] is old. He’s old,” said Hearn. ”We’ve had him for two fights, he looked very poor in those fights. He can punch, he’s dangerous, but I think Wilder is too big, too fast, and too fresh. I think it’s a good move for Ortiz. He was trying to get Joshua stripped of the WBA [title]. We wanted to fight Luis Ortiz, but we have to take care of our mandatories in historical order — chronological order — and that’s Pulev first. So, we’ll deal with that and we wanted Ortiz but we can now look at the winner of that fight next summer.”
Pulev has a chance of beating Joshua if he can get him tired by pushing him to fight hard. I just don’t know if Pulev has the style to force Joshua to exert energy. Pulev, 36, likes to stand at a distance and jab his opponents into submission. If Pulev fights that way against Joshua, he won’t be able to tire him out enough to stop him. Pulev will need to change his fighting style entirely for him to have a chance of scoring a knockout over Joshua.
The thing is, Pulev doesn’t have the chin to take hard shots from Joshua. If Pulev could take some big shots from Joshua and make him move his body builder physique around the ring for a round or 2, he could get him tired enough to knock him out. Pulev doesn’t have the chin to take big punches from a guy like Joshua, and he doesn’t fight the right way for him to be a threat. You never know though.
Joshua is badly flawed in the stamina department. Joshua’s stamina is perhaps the worst I’ve seen from a fighter in boxing. When Joshua gasses, he stayed tired for 3 rounds for some reason. That eventually is going to lead to Joshua getting knocked out once he faces a heavyweight good enough to take advantage of Joshua when he gets tired.