Serious boxing thread - why did Joshua look so bad last night?

Looked the same as he did against Povetkin, only he got the KO in that one.

The loss reminded me of Wlad Brewster. The man took Wlads best and tired him out. They said afterwards that Wlad had some sort of episode which was hilarious. That was the low point of Wlads career. Wlad then rejuvenated his career and became a hof fighter. Joshua will have to go that route and prove himself and keep on winning to get into the Hall.

He fought stupid way. Instead of keeping Ruiz on distance ( Klitschko boxing style), he invited him on street close fight. You are bigger, you have bigger reach, why the hell should you invite him closer? Jab him, when he tryies to move closer, clinch him. Have a patience, keep waiting on big cross shot. That is what Wladimir was doing his whole career. He dropped Ruiz but not hurt. he thought Ruiz is done and desperately tried to finish him early. It worked against Povetkin latter in middle rounds, but not against Ruiz. Ruiz hit him with some big shots in 3. round and Joshua looked disoriented. There was no way back from here and Ruiz just kept bullying Joshua.

1) He is a boxer with average talent. Technically he is very limited and his boxing IQ is poor. When he is hurt, his options are limited. 2) His build. To put it short, he is slow and clumsy. It makes it difficult for him to tie up, difficult to punch without leaving himself open, and difficult to move around with any fluidity. 3) He got greedy. He got caught trying to finish things early and points 1 & 2 were exploited. I'm not sure he can bounce back. People say Lennox but in terms of ability & fight they are far apart. Miles and miles away They should never mention his name with Lennox Lewis Or the majority of the heavyweights of today

1) He is a boxer with average talent. Technically he is very limited and his boxing IQ is poor. When he is hurt, his options are limited. 2) His build. To put it short, he is slow and clumsy. It makes it difficult for him to tie up, difficult to punch without leaving himself open, and difficult to move around with any fluidity. 3) He got greedy. He got caught trying to finish things early and points 1 & 2 were exploited. I'm not sure he can bounce back. People say Lennox but in terms of ability & fight they are far apart.

Joshua is supposed to be European fighter. Instead it's like he tried to be slick to the US lol why's he got his hands down trying to be a counter puncher wtf? He needed to methodically walk Ruiz down as the bigger stronger man. AJ looked off from the opening bell like people have said. Something wasn't right like savid Allen said in his ifl interview response. Who taught AJ to fight in that style? He was too slow to catch counter right hand like floyd

If Ruiz had a full camp instead of taking the fight on short notice I think AJ would’ve looked sharper ........what?

way back when fury un-retired I said he was the best heavyweight

Andy is a bad style match up for Joshua. Joshua has a weak jab, and needs to fight at his own pace as others have mentioned. Also Andy has good boxing fundamentals/power/punch placement/deceptive head movement/good spacing (knows how to use distance for defense and offense)/and efficient foot movement. Andy conserves energy well with his fight style, and is great at counters due to his great hand speed, he also packs enough of a punch to hurt anyone at heavy. Watching the fight I got the sense that Andy was setting him up as he had picked Joshua's style apart after 3 rounds. A better prepared Andy goes into the rematch and doesn't eat many big shots from Joshua. If I were Hearn I wouldn't take an immediate rematch. I would let Joshua take a hiatus and let the environment settle a bit like Tyson did (Holyfield took the title from Douglas). Let Whyte, or Wilder get the straps from Andy and then fight a few soft touches and get a mandatory with the Pulevs or Ortiz's of the world before he takes a another loss to Andy. Yeah he may lose to Fury, Wilder, Usyk but at least he would give his career a few more fights. An immediate loss and people will crucify him as the public (who lacks knowledge of boxing) see Andy as a Butterbean type of fighter (he is clearly top 4 at heavy to me).

it's human nature to overlook ruiz when you've got fights on the horizon with an extra dollar sign on them. ruiz is also a solid fighter. he has power, a good chin, and fast hands. those things make a HW dangerous. he was able to land on joshua where others were not. he has an amateur background and solid boxing skills and they served him well. went to the body, weathered a storm, and took him out in the middle rounds when he had softened him up. joshua's going to have to box intelligently and establish his jab, or the rematch may go the same way. Good post. Agreed!

it's human nature to overlook ruiz when you've got fights on the horizon with an extra dollar sign on them. ruiz is also a solid fighter. he has power, a good chin, and fast hands. those things make a HW dangerous. he was able to land on joshua where others were not. he has an amateur background and solid boxing skills and they served him well. went to the body, weathered a storm, and took him out in the middle rounds when he had softened him up. joshua's going to have to box intelligently and establish his jab, or the rematch may go the same way.

If Ruiz had a full camp instead of taking the fight on short notice I think AJ would’ve looked sharper Wait what? Lol

This, that punch in round 3 scrambled his brains it's a punch that's hard to recover from, messed his equilibrium for the whole fight. Plus he needs a consistent sharp jab that he steps in with, too much pawing. Spot on. I gave out too much green k. Very good post.

If Ruiz had a full camp instead of taking the fight on short notice I think AJ would’ve looked sharper

Was Ruiz better than most people thought? Bad matchup? Nerves/etc from his first US fight? Didn't take training seriously? Weak chin finally caught up to him? The result and fight last night was just really puzzling to me - Joshua was getting backed up from the get go by this fat smaller guy lol. It was just odd to see him unable to really do much to back Ruiz up or hurt him. I haven't watched all of AJ's fights in total - but he was able to get the job done against Povetkin, Wlad, Takam, White, and Breazeale and KO them. Got by Parker with a UD. Not exactly a HOF resume, especially considering Povetkin and Wlad were past prime and the others not that great. But I just felt Ruiz would be in the same category as the Whites, Breazeales, Takams, Povetkins and Parkers. I've never really seen footage of AJ looking bad in a fight before - and he looked awful to me pretty much the entire fight. I always thought AJ could really box - why couldn't he back up this dude lol? Really not trolling - just trying to wrap my head around what the hell happened last night. He lost because this was the first guy who could take his shots and return shots. How many guys has he fought who threw combos? None. Joshua isn’t a guy who will fight on the inside. Wider can’t fight on the inside but he will go inside to see what you have. And Joshuas lack of a jab hurt him also. His jab was effective but he didn’t throw it enough and he seemed to not want to get tired.

Ruiz has an incredible chin. If he didn’t we’d be having a completely different conversation. Joshua went all in trying to take Ruiz out in the 3rd. Other fights he’s been successful with that but all he got for his trouble last night was a concussion. When they rematch, Joshua will no doubt be thinking about winning rounds, keeping his distance and conserving energy.

I think I pinpointed it to the fact that the temple shot caused him to lose more than just his equilibrium, it sapped his confidence. It was like a switch was flipped and he was overwhelmed with self-doubt which you could see in his eyes from that point on. Perhaps he had a flashback where in a fight or sparring an opponent landed that punch and he was affected for some time by that punch and knew he was not going to recover quickly this time either. Add to that the shock that he was now being hurt by a guy that he would never have had a single doubt about beating leading up to the fight. Thanks man - good post. That story about him getting KOed cold in sparring by David Price is always in the back of my mind when it comes to AJ.

Didn’t take Ruiz seriously and never recovered from the first hard punch that out him down in the 3rd. It happens. This, that punch in round 3 scrambled his brains it's a punch that's hard to recover from, messed his equilibrium for the whole fight. Plus he needs a consistent sharp jab that he steps in with, too much pawing.

I think I pinpointed it to the fact that the temple shot caused him to lose more than just his equilibrium, it sapped his confidence. It was like a switch was flipped and he was overwhelmed with self-doubt which you could see in his eyes from that point on. Perhaps he had a flashback where in a fight or sparring an opponent landed that punch and he was affected for some time by that punch and knew he was not going to recover quickly this time either. Add to that the shock that he was now being hurt by a guy that he would never have had a single doubt about beating leading up to the fight.

Crap endurance & no heart he fought a guy who did not allow him to sit back and fight at his own pace Can't argue with any of that either, good points.