By Scott Gilfoid: With a very real threat in Dillian Whyte (15-0, 12 KOs) looming down the road for December 12th, unbeaten #2 WBC Anthony Joshua (13-0, 13 KOs) is trying not to think about that risky fight, and istead concentrate at the task at hand of facing unbeaten Gary Cornish (21-0, 12 KOs) this Saturday night at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Whyte is fighting Brian Minto (41-9, 26 KOs) on the Joshua-Cornish undercard in a move to help draw interest in the Joshua-Whyte fight on December 12th. Joshua says he’s not going to overlook the 28-year-old Cornish because he doesn’t believe in looking ahead, but obviously that’s something that Joshua has been doing a lot of in talking about wanting to fight the winner of the Tyson Fury vs. Wladimir Klitschko fight next year for the IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles.
Joshua has a ton of ambition, but we still don’t know if he’s blessed with the talent to be anything more than the Commonwealth heavyweight champion. That’s the title Joshua and Cornish will be fighting for this Saturday night.
“I’m not here to overlook Gary. He’s my main man and the fighter I’m worried about right now,” Joshua said via skysports.com. “After that, my attention will be solely on Dillian. Of course, you’ve got to put your eggs in the basket and mine are with Gary and Saturday right now.”
I don’t believe Joshua is concentrating totally on the 6’7” Cornish. We’ve already seen Joshua blabbering about wanting to fight Klitschko or Fury. Joshua is thinking two moves ahead instead of keeping his mind on the fight right in front of him.
I don’t think it’s going to hurt him in this case because Cornish is so over-matched that it’s not even funny. But later on down the road if Joshua overlooks Whyte by looking ahead to Klitschko, Fury or Deontay Wilder, then I see Joshua tasting defeat. Heck, even if Joshua fully concentrates on Whyte, I still see him losing that fight, but obviously it’s better if Joshua is mentally engaged for that fight instead of daydreaming about the future.
“I’m a big guy, I hit hard and I’m trying to do my thing and whoever these paws start catching, they’re going to feel it regardless of whether any mask is on or the mask is off – I’ll do my bit,” Joshua said.
At 6’6”, 250lbs, Joshua is a very big guy with football player type size. However, he’s not really big puncher in the mold of a Klitschko, Deontay Wilder, Lucas Browne and Bermane Stiverne type of guy. Joshua can punch, but not an upper level puncher in my view. On a 1-10 scale, I’d put Joshua around 6 or 7. Up at No.10 is Deontay and No.9 would be Wladimir.
Stiverne and Browne would both be at No.9. Joshua is just a guy that throws a lot of punches when his 3rd tier opposition are dumb enough to retreat to the ropes and cover up so that he can tee off on them. Joshua then throws a storm of shots to score knockouts against his sparring partner like opposition. Having seen Cornish fight on a number of occasions, I rate him as a 3rd tier heavyweight, and I see him retreating to the ropes on Saturday night to cover up until the fight is stopped in the 1st round. Joshua won’t have any problems taking him out.
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