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Not so happy with many comments on Anthony Joshua’s performance against Jermaine Franklin. It is obvious many of his fans are fed up with him.
His one time rival, Dillian Whyte believes that Joshua cannot offer much to boxing anymore and that his compatriot, Tyson Fury would not even want a local fight with Joshua.
To Whyte, Joshua was not ready to take a risk in the fight against Franklin and with this, he has nothing to offer Fury. Whyte wants Joshua again, which is not going to be a title fight but money.
However, Joshua is eyeing a WBC belt, the only and the most prestigious boxing belt in the hands of Fury. Currently, Fury is the most elitist boxer of this era by his fearlessness and capacity to manage the ring and his opponent well.
However his greed made Oleksandr Usyk to stop the deal on unified, undisputed bout that would have happened late this month.
Will Fury fight Joshua? I’m not sure. Fury is a difficult businessman to deal with but with Joshua calling him out, the world is waiting for his response.
But Joshua can still win a belt, it may not be an undisputed title. It may be one of the unified belts; WBA, IBF, IBO or the special green belt WBC.
In 1978, Muhammad Ali lost his WBC to a rookie in one of the boxing upsets of all all time. Leon Spinks had just seven professional fights when he fought Ali and beat the legend, took his belt and walked away.
Ali quickly activated his rematch clause and in September of that year, he was back in the ring without a belt to reclaim his title with unanimous decision against Spinks, becoming the first boxer to ever win a belt for the third time.
Ali was 36, Spinks was 27 when Ali became three-time heavy weight boxing champion.
Sometimes, some rookies are underrated because of their rankings and I think Franklin is one of those underrated boxers. This American is good and will make things difficult for any elite boxer as he did to Joshua.
Writing Joshua off because he could not knock out Franklin is not good enough. The records of Franklin show that he had never been knocked out in all his fights, meaning that he is strong and can go a long distance.
There is one positive for Joshua in his match against Franklin in that he did not run out of gas. Unlike in the past when he would begin to shake at round five, Joshua went on 12 rounds pressuring his opponent and nearly knocking him out.
He is not growing younger, yet he is coming up with a renewed energy to go toe-to-toe with a younger and more energetic boxer.
Whyte has this to say about Joshua, “The skills are still there, the right hand is still there but the aggression to push forward.”
For me, what Joshua now lacks in aggression is in his precision. His jabs are more accurate and not telegraphic as in the past.
Boxing and winning sometimes come with style. Joshua may look shaky now, he may reclaim his glory in his newly found style. A belt is coming back, I foresee this.
