By Charles Brun: Gareth A. Davies says Anthony Joshua must get a “highlight reel” knockout against Jermaine Franklin on April 1st to get his “killer mentality” back that he’s somehow lost after getting beaten twice in a row by Oleksandr Usyk in the last two years.
Unfortunately, Joshua has become positively gunshy, seemingly afraid to let his hands go, still shaken by the memory that haunts him from his devasting knockout defeat against Andy Ruiz Jr on June 1st, 2019.
While Joshua has the offensive arsenal to score a highlight-reel knockout, his fragile mind is still trying to make sense of the loss that should never have happened against the unlikeliest of conquerors, the rotund Andy Ruiz Jr.
AJ shell shocked
Joshua is the equivalent of a war veteran still having flashbacks of what he saw in battle. It’s as if AJ has PTSD from what he went through in the first fight with Ruiz and is still seemingly shell-shocked.
The steady bombardment of shots that Ruiz dropped on Joshua that night has had a lasting effect on him that is arguably irreversible.
When a person experiences a terrible life event, they tend to avoid going through that again. If they almost drown, they don’t go near the water afterward.
Joshua was caught by a counter shot from Ruiz when he was fighting aggressively, going for a knockout. That experience left an imprint on Joshua’s mind, making him hesitant to fight aggressively again for fear if getting caught in the same way.
If you look at Joshua’s three fights since his loss to Ruiz, he’s been very defensive and nothing like the fighter he’d been before that contest. Unfortunately, it’s too late to return Joshua to the fighter he once was because he can’t get past the memory of that night in New York.
Joshua needs a highlight reel knockout
“He’s had 12 world title fights in a row. He needs to get back into that knockout mentality,” said Gareth A. Davies to Boxing Social about Anthony Joshua. “That’s what he has to do against Franklin.
“He can’t sit behind his jab for 12 rounds, but if he knocks him out early, he’ll be damned if he knocks him out early. He’ll be damned if he goes 12 rounds.
“I think he needs a spectacular [knockout]. He needs the optics of being back to the big, bruising killer that he is. Ditto to go into potentially a fight with Dillian Whyte in the summer in a stadium, but he needs that highlight reel viral knockout of Jermaine Franklin,” said Davies.
Joshua needs to be the killer he once was, but it doesn’t look promising. If he was going to mentally return to the fighter he once was, he would have done so already.
Joshua looks mentally unfit to be put back on the front line with the way he’s looking inside the ring. At this point, AJ is fodder for his opponents to unload on and tear to pieces inside the ring, and one gets the sense that his promoter Eddie Hearn suspects that it’s over for his former flagship money fighter.
“Yeah, you can be critical [of Franklin]. What is he, 27, 29 in the world, but he put up a very good struggle against Dillian Whyte in November. I was there.
“It was a close fight. Dillian just shading that fight. I’m not overly critical of it [Joshua fighting Franklin]. You could pick another host of opponents.
“Joshua has had two losses in two years. He had a very difficult opponent [Oleksandr Usyk]. He looked better the second time.
“I was out there live, covering it, but he just needs to get back in that winning column. But for me, it’s how he wins, and he needs to win in spectacular fashion,” said Davies about Joshua.