By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten #13 WBC Dominic Breazeale (17-0, 15 KOs) sees himself unseating undefeated IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (16-0, 16 KOs) in two months from now in their fight on June 25 on Sky Box Office PPV from the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Breazeale was selected by Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn likely due to his unbeaten record, him being an American, and because of his 2012 Olympic status from the U.S. Breazeale fought briefly in the Olympics but was eliminated right away in his first fight against a Russian opponent Magomed Omarov.
However, Breazeale thinks Joshua was beaten in the Olympics in 2012 and did not rate his gold medal. Joshua controversially beat the 2008 Olympic gold medalist Roberto Cammarelli in the finals of the 2012 Olympics in a fight that many boxing fans saw Joshua losing. The fight was held in London, by the way. I had Joshua losing to Camarelle, Cuba’s Erislandy Savon, China’s Zhang Zhilei and Kazakhstan’s Ivan Dychko.
“He [Joshua] was a good fighter in the heavyweight class of 2012 Olympics. But I honestly think he lost to the Olympian for the gold medal match,” said Breazeale to skysports.com about Joshua’s controversial gold medal in the 2012 Olympics.
For many of Joshua’s fans, his controversial gold medal victory in the 2012 Olympics is a tough one to explain away. If there were only a tiny handful of boxing fans who felt that Joshua was gifted the gold medal in the London Olympics, then it wouldn’t be a big deal. But unfortunately there are a massive amount of fans who saw Joshua losing to both Savon and Cammarelle.
“I’m definitely going to ruin that perfect record. In the end, I’ll be the last man standing. It’s going to be a battle of two titans, but in the end it will be me raising my hand and holding a new belt,” said Breazeale.
If Breazeale can go into the O2 and beat Joshua, it would be a huge upset win, because he’s obviously been picked out due to him not being seen as a serious threat to beating Joshua. While Breazeale has a nice flashy looking record, he’s beaten very meager oppsotiion and looked poor in his only to fights against credible opposition in fights against Fred Kassi and Amir Mansour. I thought Breazeale lost to Kassi. He was totally outworked in that fight by Kassi, and hit with the more solid shots all night long.
Even if you want to pretend that Breazeale deserved the win, you can’t ignore how bad Breazeale looked in that 10 round fight. He took a step up in class against the B-level Kassi and he failed the test in a big way. He should have given Kassi a rematch so that he could prove that he’s the better fighter.
“That will be a shock to the world for sure,” said Breazeale. “Going to a man’s back yard and taking his belt. Take his crowd – please them – gain some fans. There is no better way to do it. I’m 17-0 with 15 KOs. Every man I’ve faced, I’ve put down on the canvas. Unfortunately, I’ve had two guys go the distance. They were able to get up off the canvas and finish the fight.”
Breazeale is hardly a big puncher. He can punch a little, but he’ not a huge puncher. The only reason he’s been getting so many knockouts is because he’s been facing poor opposition. Breazeale is not a big puncher at all. I hope for his sake he uses his jab and looks to out-box Joshua on June 25 instead of trying to trade shots with him.
If Breazeale had the kind of heavy hands that we saw with Erislandy Savon and Cammarelle in their fights against Joshua, then I would say that they should try and trade with him because he would have a very good chance of beating Joshua like those fighters arguably did. But Breazeale is not that kind of a puncher, and I would hope that someone would have had him sit down so that they could break the news to him about his lack of power.
Breazeale is likely going to get blasted out in this fight early unless he can find enough power to put Joshua down early before he’s had a chance to get his offense ramped up.