By Scott Gilfoid: With the way that Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn talks about his fighter unbeaten heavyweight Anthony Joshua (14-0, 14 KOs) you would think that he struck oil and hit it big.
Hearn has been yapping about how great Joshua is for ages ever since he signed him two years ago shortly after Joshua won a controversial gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics in his home country of England.
Hearn has been predicting greatness from Joshua since he turned pro. Well, now it’s his father Barry Hearn who is pouring compliments over the head of the 6’6” Joshua by saying that he doesn’t see any heavyweight in the world who can go three rounds with him.
“I don’t know a heavyweight in the world who could go three rounds with Anthony Joshua. None,” Hearn said via IFL TV.
You can’t say anything about how Joshua is because his opposition has been darn bad since he turned pro. How do you extrapolate from the fodder that Joshua has been fighting to say that no one can beat him? I don’t think it’s possible. It’s like someone taking a light swim in a wading pool for toddlers, and then assuming that they can swim the English channel because they did such a great job in the wading pool.
I suspect reality is going to hit Barry and Eddie Hearn over the head when Joshua gets inside the ring with unbeaten Dillian Whyte (16-0, 13 KOs) on December 12th, and Joshua winds up getting dropped repeatedly on the canvas like a yo-yo. The thing is when you get a big guy like Joshua and put him on the canvas, they’re not so good when they get back up to their feet. They hit the canvas hard and it’s obviously difficult for them to get back to their feet.
Whyte is going to take Joshua to the deep end of the pool and look go drown him on December 12th. Whyte will take advantage all of Joshua’s untested stamina by forcing him to fight at a fast pace to get him into the later rounds of the contest.
The thing is Joshua hasn’t had his stamina tested yet, and all that muscle that he’s carrying around is going to be a heavy burden for him in this fight. He’s going to run out of gas, and then find himself weak and leg weary. At that point I suspect that Whyte will nail Joshua with a left hook to drop him.
I see this pattern repeated over and over again before the fight is eventually stopped with Joshua too hurt to continue. I’ll be here to tell Hearn that I told you so. I told you that Joshua should have lost some of that useless muscle. I told you that he should have worked his way up to the 12 round limit by facing better opposition instead of all the fodder opponents that he’s been fed since he turned pro.
“You saw what you saw. Let’s take nothing away from the other fella’. This fella’s dangerous. He’s a weapon of mass destruction,” Hearn said.
Joshua stopped an over-matched Gary Cornish in the 1st round last Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London. Whyte predicted the outcome of the fight, and he saw Cornish as just another one of the many easy marks that Joshua has faced.
“Let’s wait and see what Dillian Whyte can do on December 12th,” Hearn said.
If I was Joshua’s trainer, I’d put him on a soup and bread diet and get him on triple day workouts on the track. I’d lock of his weight set, and I’d burn that muscle off of him to get him down to 220 pounds so that can find some hand speed and mobility. He’s just too slow and lumbering right now at 250.
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