By Scott Gilfoid: Unbeaten contender Dominic Breazeale (17-0, 15 KOs) says IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (16-0, 16 KOs) is a muscle-bound fighter, and he believes his huge muscles are going to wind up being his downfall when the two of them face each other on June 25 at the O2 Arena in London, UK.
Breazeale notes that fighters with overly muscled physiques tend to struggle over the duration of fights because they’re large muscles require a lot of oxygen to keep them moving.
Thus far, none of Joshua’s opponents have been able to push a fast enough pace and take him deep enough into a fight to test whether his muscles will slow him down. Most of the guys that Joshua has fought have fought slowly and not pushed a fast pace against him in the way they needed to for them to have a chance of winning. Instead of going after Joshua in the first round to turn the fight into a war where he’s forced to move his bodybuilding muscles a lot, his past opponents have fought timidly by throwing few punches and letting Joshua control the pace. That obviously doesn’t work as we’ve seen.
The only thing that has worked to some extent was the all-out blitzing attacking that Dillian Whyte made against Joshua in the second round of their fight last December. Whyte turned the fight into a war in that round, and this resulted in Joshua’s form going to pieces and him gassing out quickly. That approach clearly works. If you look at old video of the amateur showdown between Lennox Lewis and Riddick Bowe in the 1988 Olympics, the two fighters just stood and slugged in a war. Both guys had success, but Lewis eventually took Bowe out in the 2nd round.
Bowe was doing well though, and it easily could have gone the other way if he hadn’t been rocked by a right hand. The thing is if Bowe had fought at a slow pace, he would have almost surely been totally dominated by Lewis. At least by turning the fight into a war, Bowe turned the match into a game of chance where either guy could have won. That’s what Breazeale must do on June 25 to beat Joshua, because if he fights at a slow pace, then Joshua will line him up for a big right hand like he did Martin.
“He’s a bit of a specimen; he’s pretty muscle-bound. Usually in boxing it works against you. You can’t really be the muscle-bound physical physique type of fighter and be a durational type of fighter,” said Breazeale to RingTV.com. “When I say that, carry it round after round, punch after punch, eventually those muscles are gonna need oxygen to pump them. I think it’s a downfall for him. It looks good but won’t play well in the ring.”
Breazeale is right, of course. I totally agree with him. Having large muscles as a fighter tends to be a negative for fights that go past the sixth round in many cases. Those muscles become like a large anchor that weighs them down, causing to slow down and basically gas out. However, to wear down a body-builder type fighter, you’ve still got to push a fast pace, because many of them have learned how to get the proper rest in each round for them to go a 12 round bout. They practice at getting just enough rest during rounds for them to carry those huge muscles around. What they’ll do is fight hard for maybe 30 seconds of every round, and then spent the next two and half minutes fighting slowly and looking for single shots.
To get the better of these type of fighters, the pace must be pushed to the limit in each round so that they can’t get the rest they need for their muscles. This means no clinching whatsoever. If the body-builder type heavyweight tries to clinch, you fight him off by working through the clinch by nailing him to the head with repeated right hands.
David Haye is one of those heavyweights who doesn’t let his opponents clinch without him nailing them. The only time Haye couldn’t throw punches against a heavyweight that was clinching him was when he fought the 6’6” Wladimir Klitschko in 2011. Wladimir made sure that he grabbed Haye tightly each time he clinched and would lean on him. This made it virtually impossible for Haye to throw any shots while he was being held by Wladimir during the many clinches in the fight.
“I’m definitely going to prove everybody wrong,” said Breazeale to IFL TV about him beating Joshua on June 25. “Anthony Joshua hasn’t proven anything to me. You can’t go on physical image. He hasn’t fought anybody that is going to expose him like I’m going to do. I’m going to shock the world and show that all those muscles and speed [are useless] when it comes down to having to bite down and fight. You can have big shoulders and big biceps, fast reflexes and all that, but as soon as you get punched in the mouth or in the head, the game plan changes. That’s what I plan on doing,” said Breazeale.
When asked if he’s impressed with Joshua’s power, Breazeale said “Not at all. If you told me he’s knocked someone out that’s never been knocked out before, then I would say, ‘yeah, the power’s real,’ but he hasn’t done that yet. You put a vicious dog in a corner, there’s only one way for him to go,” said Breazeale.
Well, it would be in Breazeale’s best interest to not let himself get backed into the corner by fighting off the ropes against Joshua. We’ve seen in many of Joshua’s past fights that when his opponents would back up against the ropes, he would unload on them with flurries until the referee would stop the fight with his opponent still standing. Joshua has learned a trick to get knockouts in his fights by just throwing a lot of punches.
It doesn’t seem to matter whether Joshua’s opponents are hurt or not, the referee will still stop the fight just based on Joshua throwing a flurry of unanswered shots. That’s why it would be a mistake for Breazeale to let himself get backed up to a corner by Joshua on June 25, because it might lead to the referee pulling the plug on the fight if Joshua throws a flurry like he ALWAYS does. If Breazeale does get pushed into the corner by the 250lb Joshua, then he needs to fight his way out of the corner like a “vicious dog” so that he doesn’t get taken out by a flurry of arm punches.
“I want him to feel uncomfortable at all given times of the fight, every second of every round,” said Breazeale. ”At the same time, I’m not going to let an opportunity pass me. If I see something I can take in the first or second round, I’m definitely going to get him out of there.”
It sounds like Breazeale knows what he needs to do for him to beat Joshua by not letting him get any rest breaks whatsoever in this fight. Breazeale must force Joshua to use his muscles for the full three minutes of every round to break down his form, his planned attacks, and make him fight on instinct rather than on strategy. When turn a fight into a war, any plans that a fighter had going into the bout are thrown out the window completely. The fight then becomes a toss-up of survival of the fittest.
If Joshua’s muscles aren’t suited to fighting at a fast pace in a heavyweight war, then he’ll lose to Breazeale. In other words, Joshua will be weeded out in the survival of the fittest. Joshua would then need to figure out how he can be successful with his career against heavyweights that push a fast pace. It might require that Joshua retool his body by stripping off the 30 pounds of muscle weight he’s put on his frame since 2009 to get back down to 220lbs, which I feel was Joshua’s best weight for endurance purposes.
You can’t have all that useless muscles on your frame if you’re going to be fighting heavyweights that turn the fights into wars for three minutes of every round. Believe me, if Breazeale creates the blueprint in how to beat Joshua by pushing a fast pace, all every heavyweight opponent that Joshua faces for the remainder of his career will use that blueprint to try and duplicate Breazeale’s efforts.
The thing is, Breazeale would be taking a page out of the blueprint that Roberto Cammarelle created in the amateur ranks in his two fights against Joshua. Cammarelle pushed a fast pace against Joshua and appeared to clearly beat him in both fights, only to lose by controversial decisions on both occasions. Joshua looked gassed out in both fights after just one round. Breazeale only needs to look at what Cammarelle and Dillian Why did in their fights with Joshua to use the same strategy for his fight on June 25 on Sky Box Office pay-per-view.