By Scott Gilfoid: Peter Fury, the trainer for former heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, thinks Anthony Joshua must come out quickly out of the blocks and turn his fight against Wladimir Klitschko into a “street fight” in order to beat him this Saturday night in their fight in London, England. Tyson Fury beat Wladimir using trickery with fighting defensively in their match 2 years ago in 2015.
Peter thinks it would be a mistake for the heavyset Joshua to try and use the same tactics that Fury used, because it’s not how he normally fights. Peter cannot see Joshua being able to fight Wladimir the way that Fury did. He thinks that Joshua must go after Wladimir hard in the first 4 rounds and look to hurt him with one of his big power shots.
Wladimir and Joshua will be fighting this Saturday night on April 29 on Sky Box Office PPV in the UK and on Showtime/HBO in the U.S. The fight will be taking place in the 90,000 seat Wembley Stadium in London, England. The tickets have all been sold out for the Joshua-Klitschko fight. In fact, the tickets have been sold out for a while, as the casual boxing fans from the UK love the Joshua vs. Klitschko fight. I’m not sure that this fight would come close to selling out if it were to be staged in the States. Neither of these guys are stars in the U.S.
“He’s got to come for that knockout and he’s got to bring it early,” said Peter Fury to skysports.com about what Joshua needs to do for him to beat Wladimir. ”He’s got to put Klitschko in shock, take him out of his stride, and rough him up properly. That is the only way he is going to handle Klitschko in my opinion. He’s got to really come to take him out. He’s got to take it into a street fight.”
There’s positives and negatives involved in the 6’6”, 250 pound Joshua trying to attack Wladimir in a fast past attacking style like we saw from guys that whipped him in the past like Corrie Sanders, Lamon Brewster and Ross Puritty. In order for Joshua to be able to do what they did, he’s going to need a big engine. He’s not going to be able to beat Wladimir with minimal effort, fighting at his typical slow pace.
Joshua will need to jump on Wladimir early and try and flurry to get him out of there. Wladimir learned from his losses to Brewster and Sanders. He learned how to nail fighters that attacked him all out with left hooks. Look at what Wladimir did to Samuel Peter in their first fight. Peter was attacking Wladimir nonstop with huge power shots in their first fight in 2005.
Wladimir ended up catching Peter with a big left hook and staggering him late in the fight. Peter made the mistake of bum rushing Wladimir one time too many and it cost him. There’s no way that Joshua can fight Wladimir the way that Samuel Peter did. He’s carrying too much muscle and doesn’t have the stamina. I don’t think Joshua has the chin either to fight like that. We saw Joshua get buzzed by Dillian Whyte in 2015 and Mihai Nistor in 2011 when he tried to fight at a fast pace. We also saw Joshua tiring in both fights from fighting at a fast pace.
Peter believes that the strategy that he had Tyson Fury use against Wladimir was a great one. I don’t agree. I think Wladimir would beat the brakes off the 2015 version of Fury if that fight were to take place today. I don’t think Wladimir was properly motivated or mentally engaged for that match. Fury didn’t do anything special. He was just leaning back, slapping with both hands and running a lot. It was a style that likely would have failed had Wladimir been motivated.
I think a lot of heavyweights would have knocked Fury out on the night if they had been inside the ring with him. It’s a good thing that Fury stopped fighting when he did, because I believe that Wladimir would have knocked him out in a rematch. I also think the following heavyweights would destroy Fury if they were to fight him: Joshua, Joe Joyce, Dillian Whyte, Luis Ortiz, Deontay Wilder, Alexander Povetkin, Joseph Parker, Dominic Breazeale, Jarrell Miller, David Haye, Andy Ruiz Jr. and Zhilei Zhang. There’s a little over a dozen heavyweights that I believe will beat Fury if/when he returns to the ring. I’m almost certain that Fury would lose all of those heavyweights, including Wladimir. As such, I wouldn’t pat myself on the back too much if I were Peter Fury in thinking that they came up with a great game plan to beat Wladimir. It wasn’t great stuff that Fury was doing. It was the same old style that Fury always uses. It was just that Wladimir was completely switched off mentally in that fight, and not willing to do what he needed to do for him to punch Fury’s lights out.
“If he applies a boxing match to this, I think only one winner, because he’s got to take Wladimir out of his stride, not give him the time to set himself, and not give Wladimir the time to get into a routine,” said Peter about Joshua.
It’s obvious that Joshua would never in a million years beat Wladimir in a boxing match. Joshua isn’t that good of a boxer. He’s mainly a guy that throws single shot bombs to try and stun his opponents. If Joshua can hurt his opponent, he then bum rushes them and tries to take them out with a flurry of shots.
Joshua is wide open for counters when he rushes forward and lets his hands go. One of these days, Joshua will pay the price for fighting the way he does. I’m not sure if Wladimir has enough youth left to knockout Joshua if he fights in his usual carless manner. I do think that if Wladimir catches Joshua with a big left hook on the button in Saturday night, he’ll knock him out. There’s no question about it. Joshua will need to be careful when bum rushing Klitschko because it could work against him on Saturday night.
Wladimir and Joshua will be fighting for the vacant World Boxing Association heavyweight title, as well as the IBF strap. These are both Tyson Fury’s old titles.
Peter thinks that Joshua must shoot for the knockout of Klitschko in the first 4 rounds. If he fails to knock him out during this portion of the fight, Peter sees Wladimir taking over the fight and going on to KO Joshua. I don’t know if it will play out like that. It depends largely in how fast of a pace Wladimir sets in the fight. If he allows the match to be fought at his typical glacial pace, then Joshua will likely never get tired, and will continue to be dangerous even late in the fight.
To tire Joshua out, or any fighter with a similar body building physique, you have to fight at a fast pace to make their hearts pump blood to all that muscle. If you let a fighter with a body building physique fight at a slow pace, they’ll be dangerous the entire time. Mike “Hercules” Weaver was a fighter that was danger late in his fights despite having the muscles of a body builder. But in the fights were Weaver was pushed to fight at a fast pace, he wore down like an old clock and was vulnerable.