Otto Wallin insists that Anthony Joshua made a mistake in choosing him as an opponent to fight this Saturday night on December 23rd because he’s going to defeat him and ruin his plans to face Deontay Wilder on March 9th in Saudi Arabia. The 6’5 1/2″ Wallin says he’s going to derail Joshua’s hopes of facing ‘The Bronze Bomber’ Wilder.
The former Swedish heavyweight amateur star Wallin (26-1, 14 KOs) says he doesn’t know why Joshua (26-3, 23 KOs) chose him as his opponent for this Saturday night.
Initially, he thought AJ picked him because he wants the #2 spot he holds with the IBF, but he doesn’t think that’s it. The more logical reason Joshua chose the 33-year-old Wallin is because he can’t punch; he’s slow and ranted high.
Otto Wallin = grim reaper for Joshua’s career
That is to say, Wallin is similar to Joshua’s last two opponents, Robert Helenius and Jermaine Franklin. He’s not much of a threat to beating AJ, so someone in his management team picked him, possibly eagle-eyes Eddie Hearn.
Eddie has done a bang-up job of turning Joshua into a star off the back of largely middle-of-the-road opposition after he signed him in 2013 to his Matchroom Boxing stable following his Olympic gold medal triumph in 2012.
Hearn has gotten to the point where not even he can keep Joshua afloat because he’s lost too much from his game mentally & physically, so all he can do is put him in with the highest-ranked, weakest opponent and hope that he wins so he can get to the money fight against Wilder, which some feels is a cash-out job.
Wallin states that he helped Joshua with sparring to prepare for his fight against IBF champion Charles Martin in 2016, but that’s the extent of their work together.
Wallin dismisses Joshua’s pipe dream
“It compares to the Fury fight, but for some reason, I feel like this is bigger. This is a huge card. I’m fighting Joshua, and the Fury fight was four years ago. It’s nice to finally talk about something else than that fight,” said Otto Wallin to Boxing King Media about his headliner this Saturday night, December 23rd, against Anthony Joshua in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Wallin failed four years ago in a narrow loss to Tyson Fury, losing a twelve round decision in a fight that should have been stopped due to a terrible cut that the ‘Gypsy King’ suffered in the second round.
Wallin gave Fury all he could handle, battering the living daylights out of him at close range and giving him pure hell. Fury looked like a wreck afterward, like someone who had crawled his way back from the frontlines to the safety of the base camp.
“I don’t know why he picked me. At first, I thought it was my #2 position with the IBF because I could have just waited, and maybe I could have got to fight [Filip] Hrgovic for the IBF title,” said Wallin on his not knowing why AJ picked him to be his opponent for December 23rd.
Why they picked Wallin: Joshua & Hearn picked him because he can’t punch, and he looked very beatable in his last fight against Murat Gassiev, moving around the ring, throwing weak shots, and just basically boxing the entire fight.
They weren’t going to take any chances by putting Joshua in with a good heavyweight with power, youth, and speed that could ruin the Wilder fight.
“Then I got this with Joshua. So, I kind of felt, ‘Okay, maybe he wants the #2 spot, but now I’m hearing other rumors that he’s going to fight [Deontay] Wilder,” said Wallin. “So, I don’t know why they [Team Joshua] took this fight. They obviously made a mistake.
“We sparred in 2016 when he was going to fight Charles Martin. He knows I’m a good fighter, and I have good will and a lot of hunger. So, I’m sure he’s not looking past me,” said Wallin about Joshua.
Joshua & Hearn are desperate and badly in need of a win, as the end of the road if they lose this fight. AJ has hit rock bottom at this stage of his ten-year pro career, and one gets the sense that Hearn is fully aware of that and hoping & praying that he can get through this fight to hit the motherload of paydays against Wilder on March 9th in Saudi Arabia.
“He knows this is going to be a tough fight from the sparring and being around each other. I think he knows that,” said Wallin.
“People keep asking me about that fight [Joshua vs. Wilder], which is supposed to be on March 9th, which is two and a half months away. I can tell everyone that fight is not going to happen. I’m sorry. I know people want to see that fight, but they made a mistake here.
“I never used those words. I don’t think I ever said that I think he’s mentally weak,” said Wallin about Joshua. “I saw an interview with Eddie Hearn when he was digging into me. He said that I had said that, but I don’t think I used those words.”
Wallin is right. He didn’t say Joshua was mentally weak but did make it clear that he felt that he was in a bad way and seen as vulnerable by other fighters.
The worst part is Joshua knows he’s vulnerable, and that’s a bitter pill for him to swallow, given the lofty birds eye view he once held at the top of the mountain, swooning down on easy prey, like 40-year-old Alexander Poverkin, 35-year-old Carlos Takam, and Eric Molina during the golden years of his career.
“I just think he has a lot of pressure. To go from the top of the mountain and come down, and people start criticizing you,” said Wallin. “I just think that’s been hard for him. He knows he’s vulnerable now, and he can lose, and I think that’s been hard for him, but I don’t think I ever said he’s mentally weak.
“You got to be pretty tough to fight in front of all those people and with all that pressure on you. You have to be pretty tough to do it. I don’t know if I’m the most famous [boxer in the history of Sweden]. We had Ingemar Johansson. He was heavyweight world champion in 1959.”
Wallin should forget about grabbing a heavyweight title and focus on reality. He’s not grabbing a world title, but what he can do is beat Joshua and make boatloads of dough fighting him in a rematch in Saudi Arabia. That’s a more attainable goal.
“Yeah, he beat Floyd Patterson in New York in 1959, and it’s been over 60 years. We feel like it’s time for another world champion, the heavyweight world champion. We have Badou Jack. He’s a multi-division world champion. So, we’ve had some very good fighters,” said Wallin.
