Ring Observer Boxing by Scoop Malinowski
By Scoop Malinowski
Anthony Joshua has said that he envisions Joseph Parker and Tyson Fury to be more challenging opponents than Deontay Wilder.
The reigning world heavyweight champion Joshua from Great Britain sees Wilder as a threat but he already has formulated and publicly announced the game plan to use to conquer the American.
“But his powerful punch doesn’t come with an uppercut, it doesn’t come with a peached left hook. It just comes with a straight right hand. So you eliminate one or two of his main weapons and I think, you know, you kind of chip the tree down with Wilder,” said Anthony Joshua.
A rule of boxing is that protected fighters who are carefully matched against a series of handpicked patsies and tomato cans never fully develop into complete, well-rounded fighters. The only way to become an advanced, experienced gladiator is to face and overcome the best opponents. To face adversity and to try and figure out the way to overcome it.
It’s a fact that Wilder has been carefully protected by his advisor Al Haymon and steered away from dangerous opposition. Consequently, Wilder has not developed properly, his growth as an athlete has been stunted.
All time great heavyweights like Wladimir Klitschko, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield, Muhammad Ali, all faced adversity and lost fights but then they figured things out and fixed their weaknesses and became great. Wilder has not been allowed to face the best challengers, only Al Haymon approved opponents. Thus Wilder is not complete and he has a false sense of security.
Joshua clearly understands this and verbalized how and why he will defeat Wilder, if they ever do fight in the next five years.
Astute ring observers believe Haymon is not ready to risk Wilder yet against Joshua and will wait and delay that fight for years or until after Wilder reaches 50-0 (he’s at 40-0 now). At which point the total purse will be far larger than it would be right now, perhaps an estimated $500,000,000.
