By Icky Smith: On the 20th of September 2021, Anthony Joshua stepped into the ring to face off with a true master of the craft … and he lost. There is no shame in that, and to many, the result didn’t come as a huge surprise, but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be questions … Were Joshua’s tactics wrong? Was it an off night? Was Usyk simply too good? Should there be a rematch?
Well, let’s take a look …
We’ll start with Oleksandr Usyk …
To Usyk and most fighters of the Russian/Ukrainian school, boxing is a dance. His style is one that places as much importance on steps and rhythm as it does on punching, and it is not an understatement to suggest that Usyk is one of the best exponents of this style that has ever lived, but Joshua still posed a genuine problem, and that was his size.
It wasn’t just the strength and power, though of course, that could be an issue; it was the range and athleticism that was the real danger. It meant that Usyk had to add an extra step to his dance and move in a wider circle … and so he did. He worked this idea to perfection and came out as a clear and deserved winner … but could Joshua have changed this outcome? Could his team?
The first thing to point out from Joshua’s Team’s point of view is that Usyk fought the best version of the exact fight that was expected of him. There were very few surprises, yet not only did AJ have no answers, he and his team had no questions. This in itself is something that requires investigation.
It can only be assumed that Anthony Joshua’s training team are amongst the most experienced, knowledgeable, and highly paid professionals in the sport, yet not one of them came up with a solution to what was a fairly obvious problem; how does Joshua gain that extra step and create the angles necessary to cause Usyk problems?
The first and most obvious solution to this is incredibly basic; take a double step …
A double step, for those who don’t know, isn’t quite what it sounds; it’s a half step, where only the front foot moves, followed by a full step, where you use your back foot to push yourself forward and into your opponent’s space. Had Joshua used this tactic, he undoubtedly would have caused Usyk more problems, and though I’m sure Usyk would claim he had he had plans B, C, D, and E all ready to rock and roll (and who would doubt him), it would have been nice to have at least seen his hand forced into using them.
In the end, I do not want to take responsibility away from AJ. He has been the one fighting, he has done the winning and the losing and amassed a record to be proud of in the process, but the fact remains that Joshua came to the game late and has been playing catch up since day one. He has always had to place a huge reliance on the team around him, yet when he has needed solutions in desperate situations, they very often haven’t had the answers, and far more importantly, he hasn’t been trained to find those answers himself.
Team Joshua definitely needs to take a look in the mirror, but should they take the re-match? There is certainly a lot of ground to make up in very little time, but it all boils down to one step, and if AJ and his team work out what that step is, then there is still hope that he might avenge this loss. However, he must shift gears quickly if he doesn’t want the heavyweight scene to leave him behind.