By Scott Gilfoid: Anthony Joshua (19-0, 19 KOs) thinks he can stay on top of the heavyweight division for the next 10 years, as long as he stays disciplined during that stretch. IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Joshua is currently 27-years-old, and he’s coming off of a less than outstanding performance against 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko on April 29.
Joshua visited the canvas in the 6th round in that fight, and was utterly exhausted from rounds 6-10. Against Kltischko, Joshua did not look like a fighter that will rule the heavyweight division with an iron fist for the next 10 years. Joshua looked more like someone whose reign could end in his next fight or two.
Providing I stay disciplined in my sport, you’ll hear of me for the next 10 years, and I’ll definitely progress as a person, and that’s what’s it’s about,” said Joshua to Sky Sports News.
This is what I was afraid of. The wins that Joshua has accumulated during his still early career have seemingly gone to his head to where he’s now talking of having a 10-year reign.
As rapidly as things change in the sport of boxing, it’s impossible to extrapolate from what Joshua has done thus far to assume that he’s going to be able to continue to keep winning for the next 10 years.
If Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is really careful with him by weeding out the dangerous heavyweights that could wreck his reign like Deontay Wilder, Luis Ortiz and David Haye, then it’s possible that Joshua will have no worries for at least the next 2 years or so. Hearn seems to be using Dillian Whyte, one of his Matchroom Sport stable fighters, as a guardian to weed out dangerous threats to Joshua. Hearn wants Deontay Wilder to have to beat Whyte first before he’s allowed to share the ring with Joshua. That suggests that Hearn is using Whyte as someone that can weed out threats to Joshua.
For Joshua to be talking about dominating for the next decade, it’s not realistic right now. That’s not to say Joshua can’t do it, but a lot of things change in boxing, especially with all these lions coming up the ranks like Joe Joyce, Tony Yoka and Daniel Dubois. Those guys are going to be a lot of problems for Joshua when the time comes for them to share the ring with him.
Joshua needs to keep his head together and stay in the moment. He’s thinking too far head right now by concentrating on stuff that he has no way of knowing about. At the present time, Joshua has a tough fight on his hands this Saturday night against #3 IBF Carlos Takam (35-3-1, 27 KOs) at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales. There will be a huge crowd of 78,000 boxing fans in attendance on Saturday night to watch the Joshua-Takam fight live. Takam has never fought in front of a crowd of that size, and he might just raise his game to another level.
If Takam can put enough pressure on the heavily muscled Joshua, he could cause him to tire out and lose his energy early on the way that Dillian Whyte and Wladimir Klitschko both did against him. Takam is NOT the type of heavyweight that you would to gas out against, as he’s capable of throwing 60 punches per round, and he’s a tireless worker inside the ring. Unlike Joshua, Takam does not gas out in his fights. He can stand and trade nonstop for 12 rounds, and that’s what makes him so dangerous for Joshua.
Joshua is expected to come into the Takam fight 10 to 15 pounds lighter than he did for his last contest against Wladimir. Joshua says he wishes he was heavier for this fight, because he feels he’ll need more size to match the bulk of Takam, who comes into his fights in the low 240s. At 6’1 1/2,” Takam is a lot stockier than Joshua, and subsequently better suited to take heavy shots.
”I wish I came in heavier, so we could just stand there and slug it out with each other,” said Joshua in wishing he were heavier for the Takam fight. “His punches are going to be ricocheting through my body, so the bigger you are, the stronger you are, but why I came in lighter, I thought I was fighting Pulev,” said Joshua.
If Joshua focuses on his defense a little more for this fight, then he shouldn’t get hit all that often by Takam. The way that Joshua is talking, it sounds like he wants to stand and fight Takam toe-to-toe instead of using his boxing ability and huge height advantage to dominate from the outside. It sounds to me like Joshua hasn’t learned his lesson from his last fight against Wladimir. It doesn’t pay off for Joshua to go to war with fighters, because he doesn’t have the gas tank for him to fight in a brawling style.
Joshua is built more for taking guys out with a quick flurry of shots in a short distance right rather than him standing and trading with fighters like Takam, who is known for his high volume punching ability. I don’t think it’s a good idea for Joshua to willingly let his fight with Takam turn into a dog fight, because he’s not likely to win that kind of contest. That would be Joshua playing to Takam’s strengths. The fact that Joshua is talking about wanting to trade with Takam now gives you a pretty good idea how he plans on fighting him. Joshua wants to jump on Takam early and try and bang him out like he’s typically done in the past against over-matched opposition.
Joshua doesn’t have enough experience against high quality fighters for him to be going after Takam in a primitive manner. Joshua needs to use more finesse in this fight if he doesn’t want to empty out his gas tank straightaway on Saturday night in Cardiff.
These are Joshua’s last 10 opponents:
• Wladimir Klitschko
• Eric Molina
• Dominic Breazeale
• Charles Martin
• Gary Cornish
• Kevin Johnson
• Raphael Zumbano Love
• Jason Gavern
• Michael Sprott
• Denis Bakhtov
As you can see for yourself, Joshua’s experience against world class heavyweight competition is rather limited to say the least. We’re talking about only 4 weights – Klitschko, Molina, Breazeale and Martin – and of those 4; only 2 of them are high level guys in Wladimir and Breazeale. Molina is more of a journeyman level fighter, and Martin is so badly flawed that he doesn’t rate to be ranked in the top 15 in my opinion.