By Jake Tiernan: Anthony Joshua’s fight against Robert Helenius was supposed to be a trial run to give him practice for the style that he would use to try and defeat Deontay Wilder next January in Saudi Arabia.
Most would agree after watching Joshua (26-3, 23 KOs) mimic the same timid, safety-first style that former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko used that he’s doomed for failure if he tries the same thing against Wilder.
Joshua needs a new coach
With his new style, Joshua will NOT defeat Wilder or heavyweight champions Oleksandr Usyk & Tyson Fury. If his trainer Derrick James cooked up the new style, Joshua needs to fire him and hook up with Brian ‘BoMac’ McIntyre because that guy is a genius coach.
AJ will still be a top contender, provided he’s matched carefully by Eddie Hearn, but he won’t capture another world title for the remainder of his career.
The days of Joshua being a world champion are finished if he can’t return to the way he used to fight seven+ years ago. For Joshua to fight with the new Klitschko-esque style requires skills & ring IQ, which he’s totally lacking.
Wladimir had the technical ability & IQ to extend his career when he adopted his ugly spoiling style following his losses to Lamon Brewster & Corrie Sanders. He was able to make adjustments in most of his fights, thanks to his trainer Emanuel Steward. Joshua can’t fight like that against Wilder or any of the top heavyweights and expect to win.
Is AJ a more dangerous fighter?
Joshua still has his hand speed & power, but he’s lost his courage and can no longer pull the trigger. He’s clearly mentally shot, and he won’t beat Wilder.
That new style that Joshua is using has made him less dangerous than he was in the past when he was fighting recklessly, and he’s more beatable now.
If Joshua could use the aggressive style he had earlier in his career, he’d have a fighting chance of beating Wilder, as long as he went right at him the way Tyson Fury did.
Of course, even Fury had problems fighting like that, as he was clearly knocked out in the first and third fights against Wilder but was saved by the referees.
“Joshua is taking time to get into his stride now. Is Joshua a more dangerous fighter? No, I don’t think he is, if I’m honest about it. He was dangerous when he was letting his hands go,” said Gareth A. Davies to iFL TV.
Joshua’s new cautious fighting style means he will allow his opponents more time to test his chin and punish him. Look how beat up Joshua was against the 39-year-old Helenius after six rounds.
If an old heavyweight like Helenius could do that to Joshua, wait and see what Wilder will do to him.
“The highlight reel loop that ran all last week leading into the fight from his first 17 fights from about six years ago, five more than five, six years ago, showed an extremely dangerous fighter who had a kind of recklessness style, but heavyweight boxing is about knockouts,” said Gareth.
It was sad looking at how Joshua used to fight and comparing it to how he’s been fighting in his last four fights. He looks like a different person. Andy Ruiz Jr took the best part of Joshua and left the empty, useless shell that we’ve seen since.
The only reason Joshua didn’t lose his last two fights is that Hearn matched him against soft opposition. Imagine what Arslanbek Makhmudov would have done to Joshua if he’d been in the ring with him last Saturday night.
Joshua needs a shootout with Deontay
“It’s about big punches. Eddie Hearn made this comparison to me, and I agree with him,” said Gareth. “It’s a little bit like Klitschko after he was knocked out. Wladimir Klitschko changed his style into a much more safety-conscious style and didn’t pull the trigger as much.”
Joshua looks like a fighter that has lost his faith in his ability to take a shot, which is why he doesn’t dare let his hands go in combination form like he once did.
The 2013 version of Joshua would have destroyed Helenius in the first round with a blizzard of punches last Saturday night and taken no punishment. Unfortunately, AJ can’t fight like that anymore because he’s afraid.
“I remember Manny Stewart, the late great Manny Steward screaming at Klitschko when I was covering some of his fights in Germany,” said Gareth. “‘You’ve got him finished. Go and finish him,’ but it sometimes took Wladimir two or three more rounds than Manny was happy about for him to finish his opponents, and he had massive power.
“I think Joshua is becoming a slightly similar fighter to Wladimir Klitschko. This was an opportunity for Joshua to show the blueprint of how he would fight Deontay Wilder. I was kind of germinating the view that he might be able to outbox Deontay, but I don’t think he will, and I don’t think he can.”
Joshua is going to try and outbox Wilder and then look to land one big punch like he did against Helenius. That’s not going to work against Deontay.
“I think it’s a shootout for him, and he’s got to go in there and make it a four or five round shootout and try and land on on Wilder. Can he do that? That’s the 60 million dollar question, isn’t it?” said Gareth.
“Yeah, he is a massive, massive favorite,” Gareth said about Deontay being the favorite over Joshua in his view. “Wilder has been down and can get up again.
“We’ve seen that Fury can go down and get up again. Can Joshua take a big punch from Wilder and get up again and give it
back to him? We don’t know that yet.
“Has he got the desire to put it on Wilder and put it on him early? I think most people would agree that that’s his best option to do that, put it on him early,” said Gareth.
