By Scott Gilfoid: British heavyweight Anthony Joshua (14-0, 14 KOs) says he plans on making unbeaten knockout artist Dillian Whyte (16-0, 13 KOs) pay for his trash talking when the two face each other next month on December 12th in their fight at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Whyte has a previous win over Joshua from the amateur ranks, and he’s been reminding him a lot about the win in the last year.
Joshua feels confident that he’ll beat Whyte though because of his success that he’s had since then in winning 14 fights as a pro against largely over-matched older fighters.
Joshua, 26, is concerned about pacing himself in this fight because he’s not had to go past the 3rd round as of yet, and he wants to make sure that he doesn’t gas out if/when Whyte takes him into the deeper rounds. It’s obviously important for the 6’6”, 249lb Joshua to pace himself because he’s packed on 10 pounds in the past year of pure muscle, and he’s starting to look more and more like Frank Bruno with every fight.
Joshua looks more like a 3-round type fighter than someone capable of going 12 rounds at a fast pace. Joshua might find out the hard way that he doesn’t have the body for a 12 round fight, even if he eventually strips off the useless 20 pounds of muscle that he’s put on since he turned pro in 2013.
“It could go past what I’m used to,” Joshua said to Fighthype about his fight against Whyte potentially going past 3 rounds. “We might go 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8. I just need to make sure I box clever, pick my shots, and keep on hitting him and breaking him down. There’s only so many shots a fighter can take flush. He’ll pay. I think he has the capability to [go past the 3rd round], but that will be his recognition to take Anthony Joshua past the third round,” Joshua said.
I think there’s a very good chance that Joshua will gas out in this fight against Whyte and wind up getting knocked out. I think the wins over fodder opposition has really gone to Joshua’s head, making him think that he’s better than he actually is. For a fighter that was arguably beaten twice in the Olympics in 2012, Joshua seems to be very confident.
That’s a weakness on his part because if you can’t look at yourself in a realistic way, then you’re going to lose and lose again. I don’t see Joshua finding success in winning controversial decisions at the pro level like he did in the Olympics. He’s going to need to actually beat Whyte on December 12th, and I don’t think Joshua can. He’s carrying around too much bodybuilding muscle, and he was never fast to begin with. I think Joshua’s priorities are mixed up. He seems to be more concerned with looking good in packing on a ton of muscles since he turned pro then in fighting good.
Also on the card will be cruiserweight Tony Bellew facing Mateusz Masternak in a 12 round fight, middleweight Chris Eubank Jr. battling Gary O’Sullivan, and lightweights Kevin Mitchell and Luke Campbell facing still to be determined opponents in separate contests.
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