By Scott Gilfoid: With his promoter Eddie Hearn talking up a match against the talented Dillian Whyte later this year in November or December, #2 WBC heavyweight contender Anthony Joshua (13-0, 13 KOs) will be fighting little known 28-year-old Gary Cornish (21-0, 12 KOs) two months from now on September 12th for the vacant Commonwealth heavyweight strap at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
While the Joshua-Whyte match-up is a good fight on paper, the Joshua-Cornish is fight is not, at least not if you like competitive fights. About the best thing that you can say about the Joshua vs. Cornish fight is the fact that Joshua will be fighting a younger and taller fighter for a change instead of the short old guys that Joshua has pretty much been exclusively fighting since he turned pro.
Cornish is young, but he can’t punch, so that kind of tells you all you need to know about this fight. All you can hope for with this fight is if Cornish has the sense enough to know that he can’t go immediately to the ropes and cover like a sparring partner as soon as the bell sounds in the 1st round like we’ve seen from some of Joshua’s recent opposition.
Cornish’s last five fights have come against these guys: Zoltan Csala, Marino Goles, Larry Olubamiwo, Hrvoje Kisicek and Ivica Perkovic. As you can see few of them are recognizable names. Perkovic and Kisicek are guys that have been fed to other British fighters Hughie Fury and Richard Towers.
The main thing that you notice about Cornish’s resume is the complete lack of talented fighters. He’s still not faced anyone good yet during his career despite the fact that he’s pushing 29. It’s obviously not a good thing to wait until your almost 30 to start fighting guys that have recognizable names.
Cornish has got take the fight to Joshua in the center of the ring, throw nonstop punches, and look to ring his bell. Joshua’s weakness is head shots, so that’s where Cornish needs to be aiming his shots. If you look at all Joshua’s past fights against live bodies in fights against Erislandy Savon, Roberto Cammarelle and Dillian Whyte, Joshua was always troubled by guys that threw a ton of punches and who nailed him in the head.
The guys that Joshua has done well against don’t throw punches, don’t pressure him, and run to the run to the ropes to play sparring partner. If you give Joshua a sitting duck like the 13 opponents that his promoter Eddie Hearn has dug up for him, he’s going to do well. But if you attack him, go for the head, and back him up with nonstop punches, Joshua is a much more vulnerable fighter.
There will be a press conference this Monday to for the Joshua-Cornish fight to be talked about in London.
Whyte will be fighting on August 1st against an opponent still to be determined. It’s obvious that Whyte will be studying how Joshua performs against Cornish so that he can find additional flaws in his game that he can exploit in their fight later this year. However, Whyte already knows what the flaws are in Joshua’s game, so he’s pretty much already tuned into what he has to do when he gets him inside the ring for their rematch. Whyte whipped Joshua in the amateur ranks in dropping him and dominating him. Joshua couldn’t handle Whyte’s punching power. I doubt anything has changed in that regard.
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