By Scott Gilfoid: IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury thinks IBF heavyweight champion Charles Martin (23-0-1, 21 KOs) will need a knockout out in order to beat the hometown fighter Anthony Joshua (15-0, 15 KOs) in their fight on April 9 at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Fury doesn’t think the judges will give Martin decision against a fighter like Joshua, who he sees as little more than a hype job at best. However, Fury still thinks the tall 6’5” Martin will win the fight because he will be getting a knockout against the 26-year-old Joshua.
“The winner of Martin and Joshua, which will be Martin in my opinion,” said Fury to IFL TV. “Again, what do I know about boxing? Not very much. Whatever I call comes true, don’t it? I’m backing Martin heavily for a knockout. But considering he’s coming over from America to England to fight a hype job, he’s going to need a knockout, because they’re not going to come here and gift him a decision. So the only way he’s going to win anyway is by knockout. He needs to fight,” said Fury.
I happen to agree completely with what Fury says about Martin needing a knockout to get the win. I don’t see the judges giving Martin the victory no matter what he does in the fight. We saw Joshua win fight after controversial fight in the London Olympics in 2012 despite him appearing to lose the fights one after another. I had Joshua losing all four fights in the 2012 Olympics.
All I can say is the screaming from his fans in those fights may have made the judges focus on Joshua’s punches more than the ones his opponents were constantly landing. I had to turn down the sound on the fights to focus because the crowd noise was making Joshua look like he was doing better than he actually was. But I do agree with Fury about Martin needing a knockout in order to win the fight. I just don’t see the judges giving Martin the victory in this fight.
As far as Joshua being a hype job, I agree that there is a lot of misplaced hype about him. If you look at the weak opposition that Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn has matched him against, he hasn’t fought anyone nearly good enough for him to be considered a true top fighter. The only good fighter that Joshua has fought was Dillian Whyte, who came into the fight with an injured left shoulder in their fight last December.
Even with an injured shoulder, Whyte was able to stagger Joshua in the 2nd round before his shoulder gave out completely on him. Whyte has since had surgery to repair the problem. Joshua looked like an overrated fighter in the Whyte fight. All the fluff that Joshua’s promoter Hearn has been talking about him being the next superstar in the sport, I saw that through all that once Joshua was in with a semi-decent fighter in Whyte.
Martin, 29, is going to need to really come after Joshua in this fight on April 9 if he wants to win. He’s not going to get the victory trying to box the 6’6”, heavily muscled Joshua. Martin is going to need to use his southpaw stance and his big powerful left hands to knock Joshua the spark out in this fight if he doesn’t want to come home the loser.
The good news is Joshua will be making it easy for Martin to get the knockout by him fighting so aggressively. Joshua has too much confidence right now from all the terrible opponents that Hearn has been feeding him. I think Joshua would be a better fighter if he had his feet on the ground. But all that soft match-making has gone to his head, making him think that he is.
Martin is going to have plenty of opportunities in this fight to stroke Joshua out of there with one of his big left counter shots or one of his powerful right hooks to the head. The moment the bell rings in the 1st round, I see Joshua rushing Martin to try and KO him like he’s done against all the journeyman level opponents that Hearn has been feeding him. Once that happens, I see Martin blasting Joshua out with a big power shot to the head.
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