Anthony Joshua with strained bicep, off Froch-Groves card

By Boxing News - 11/19/2013 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: British heavyweight Anthony Joshua (3-0, 3 KO’s) is off this Saturday’s Carl Froch vs. Georg Groves card due to Joshua suffering a strained biceps in training, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. Joshua’s 6 round fight against Dorian Darch (7-2, 1 KO’s) has been moved to December 14th at the ExCel Arena, Dockland, in London, United Kingdom. It’ll be on the Kevin Mitchell vs. Brunet Zamora card.

Joshua is being moved quickly – and very carefully – by his promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sport by having him fight frequently. Hearn isn’t matching Joshua up against fighters with any kind of power yet and it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens with Joshua once he eventually faces someone that can punch as hard or harder than him.

Darch was beaten in his last fight by the 6’6″ Hughie Fury last September in a one-sided fight. For Joshua, this is the 2nd fighter that he’ll have fought who has previously been beaten by Hughie. From appearances, it looks like Joshua is purposefully being matched against the same guys as Hughie has to show the difference between them to the boxing fans, as if it’s some kind of competition.

If that’s why Joshua’s promoter is matching him against Hughie’s leftovers then it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense because Joshua is 5 years older than the 19-year-old Hughie and a lot more experienced in terms of amateur experience against the higher level opposition before turning pro. Instead of fighting the guys that Hughie has beaten, Hearn should have skipped Joshua past guys like Darch and Hrvoje Kisicek and instead immediately started putting him in with guys like Dereck Chisora, David Price, and Richard Towers.

Joshua has a ton of muscles on his upper body and they look like they slow him down and make him tight and constricted with his movement. As big as Joshua is you would think that he’d be a big puncher, but he doesn’t appear to have huge power for his size. He reminds me a lot of Frank Bruno with how he looks and fights.



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