By Scott Gilfoid: If there’s one constant in British heavyweight Anthony Joshua’s fights since he turned pro in 2013, it’s the fact that he bum rushes all of his opponents from the opening bell in the 1st round, and looking to obliterate them as fast as possible.
There’s no finesse involved with the hulk-like 250lb Joshua in his fights. He jumps on his opponents immediately, as if he might not have faith in his ability to go more than three rounds due to all the weight he’s lugging around on his bodybuilding frame. Unbeaten Dillian Whyte (16-0, 13 KOs), who will be facing the 6’6” Joshua next month on December 12th, expects Joshua to bum rush him like he’s done with his previous 14 opponents he’s faced.
Whyte feels that Joshua fights in this manner because he has so much to lose if he gets whipped. Whyte, 27, thinks the 26-year-old Joshua is greedy for the cash money, and he knows that if he gets beaten by Whyte, the money stream will temporarily dry up for him. It obviously won’t be a permanent loss of money for Joshua, because his promoter Eddie Hearn will put him back on a diet of fodder opposition for the next year or two, and stick him in the main events each time for his Matchroom Sport cards, which are pretty much televised by Sky Sports.
“I expect him to be psyched up, coming out raging and trying to destroy me because he’s got the world to lose,” Whyte said via IFL TV. ”He’s money-orientated so he knows that if he loses here, the big pay-days are going to stop for a while. That’s what I’m preparing for.”
I totally agree with you, Mr. Whyte. I think Joshua is going to come out like a mad bull that sees red when the bell sounds in the 1st round on December 12th. The gaud awful opposition that Hearn has fed Joshua since he turned pro has given him a sense of invincibility to where he can fight in a wide open, thoughtless manner, and I expect him to continue to fight like that until he gets nailed by Whyte, and planted on the canvas for the 10 count.
It’s too bad that Joshua doesn’t have the self-awareness to realize that he’s not as good as he thinks he is, and that the only reason he’s been knocking everybody out is because Hearn has been feeding him such horrible opposition for the last two years. The match-making that Hearn has been doing for Joshua is very, very similar to the soft match-making that Hearn has done for IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook for the past four years since 2011.
Hearn has been matching Brook with loving care like a mother hen making sure that he comes to no harm. Instead of Brook being put in with dangerous guys like Keith Thurman, Errol Spence and Tim Bradley, we’ve seen Brook fight the likes of Alvaro Robles, Jo Jo Dan, Frankie Gavin, Vyachelslav Senchenko, Matthew Hatton, Carson Jones, Luis Galarza and Rafael Jackiewicz. With all the soft match-making that Hearn has done for Joshua, it makes him careless, sloppy and not tactically cautious.
Joshua can afford to fight without any real tactics or real ring smarts, because he’s just being put in with a bunch of old guys or poor awful opponents. It’s easy to look good when you’re put in just dreadful opposition.
The thing is Hearn isn’t helping Joshua, and he definitely isn’t helping Brook. Both guys are not improving in my view, and I don’t see either fighter becoming more popular because their opposition is just terrible. I mean, how to get excited about Joshua when he’s facing guys like Matt Skelton, Gary Cornish, Kevin Johnson, Raphael Love Zumbrano, Denis Bakhtov, Konstantin Airech, Matt Legg, Hector Alfredo Avila and Dorian Darch. Believe it or not, those are Joshua’s last nine opponents he’s faced. It’s pretty incredible how poorly Joshua has been matched up to this point.
“It’s me against Matchroom, probably the referee and the judges but that’s life,” Whyte said. “I’m used to that. I’m not the home fighter. At the moment they’re treating Joshua like the King of England. He’s an Olympic gold medallist, has an MBE from the Queen, he’s being hyped up and Eddie Hearn has invested a lot of money in him.”
Yeah, I have a feeling that Whyte might need to knock Joshua out cold for him to get a victory in this fight. I hate to say it. You’d like to think that Whyte will be given a fair deal in this fight, but I think he’s going to have a problem winning a decision in this fight, and I can see him losing points during crucial moments in the fight for silly stuff.
Whyte doesn’t have the superstar hype behind him the way that Joshua has due to his controversial gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics. When you’re a gold medal winner, I think you can pretty much win fights by showing up. That’s why I think Whyte is correct that he’s going to be up against it in this fight.
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