Opportunity Knocks - How Decisively does Joshua have to beat Ngannou to satisfy his legacy?

[QueensburyRules]

Well, 2-time belt holder, if you want to go strictly on verdict results and facts. The world champion remains Tyson Fury. Never beaten, ever. Lol

- - Blubber been melting, rendered on a whaling ship of his own making for years now.

Blubber's become like shaky tottering Ali who couldn't box or bust a soap bubble vs Larry Holmes.

[Willow The Wisp]

- - Blubber been melting, rendered on a whaling ship of his own making for years now.

Blubber's become like shaky tottering Ali who couldn't box or bust a soap bubble vs Larry Holmes.

So, thats a fairly common perception; and is really one of the central themes at the center of his upcoming bout with Charr, ur..Usyk. one of those beltholders.

[Willow The Wisp]

[Froch_uppercut]

Because he was meant to make a statement against Ruiz, proving that the loss against him was just a fluke. He did not make a statement but avoided Ruiz for 12 rounds and got the Saudi bag.

Nah...I don't agree that he "was meant to make a statement". Besides, he made a statement by boxing the guy's ears off. Guys like Franklin and Ruiz would beat Wilder with the same ease that Parker did, and we never see Wilder or Fury in with those tough fighters on the edge of the top ten or so. Why do they get a pass but people hate on AJ? All Joshua has done all his career is take on all comers. I don't get it. We want the best fighting the best and Joshua has never shied from a challenge, give the guy some credit.

[pollywog]

Nah...I don't agree that he "was meant to make a statement". Besides, he made a statement by boxing the guy's ears off. Guys like Franklin and Ruiz would beat Wilder with the same ease that Parker did, and we never see Wilder or Fury in with those tough fighters on the edge of the top ten or so. Why do they get a pass but people hate on AJ? All Joshua has done all his career is take on all comers. I don't get it. We want the best fighting the best and Joshua has never shied from a challenge, give the guy some credit.

Nah...A-side Joshy had one job : Unify all the belts.

He couldn't do it and now he's doing exhibitions and crushing cans while ducking Parker, Zhang and Hrgovic.

Dude can fück camels in the desert for all i care...

[TMLT87]

Fury has set a pretty low bar. So simply a convincing win without getting hurt/dropped would be enough. If he got the stoppage that would be impressive as most signs point towards Ngannou having a good chin.

[hhh1200]

AJ is playing around in the gym, having 4 rounds of sparring in a day. Fight goes the same way as Brezeale vs a quick KO bc I think this Ngannou is big and strong enough to take a sustained beating.

[Willow The Wisp]

Nah...I don't agree that he "was meant to make a statement". Besides, he made a statement by boxing the guy's ears off. Guys like Franklin and Ruiz would beat Wilder with the same ease that Parker did, and we never see Wilder or Fury in with those tough fighters on the edge of the top ten or so. Why do they get a pass but people hate on AJ? All Joshua has done all his career is take on all comers. I don't get it. We want the best fighting the best and Joshua has never shied from a challenge, give the guy some credit.

"Guys like Franklin and Ruiz would beat Wilder with the same ease that Parker did"
I'm guessing not.

When Joshua, Parker, Klitschko, Joyce, or any of them lost, they all suffered the arrows of the critics. Wilder shouldn't be any different.

But the truth is:
Parker won because Wilder hadn't fought more than half a round in TWO years.
Parker, Joshua, Franklin and Ruiz have no such excuse for their own embarrassing losses. It happens, and if Wilder elects to come back slowley as the others did, I'm certainly betting that he smokes A.J. quick.

This all assumes that A.J. smashes up Ngannou easily enough to make people remain curious about how he'd do against Wilder, to settle the old issue.

[billeau2]

At the basic level, all fighters are cut from the same cloth, so the thinking goes. If a pro grade fighter from any full contact combat sport wants to cross over to apply his talents to another set of rules, it pays to know what you're getting into, and it's nessisay to train appropriately. Doing that much right, your natural fighting talent becomes the driver, and the challenge can often times be met.

Just before a near 50 year old former boxer "Merciless" Ray Mercer stepped in with recently deposed, mid-late career UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia, in the main-event of Adrenaline MMA III: Bragging Rights in Alabama back in June 2009, something odd happened.

Regulation challenges from the Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC) forced the promotion to change the clash from a Boxing fight to a MMA fight, disclosing that Mercer had once been a top contender in Boxing, and Sylvia had to be allowed full use of his arsenal in order for the match to be fair. Notwithstanding that Mercer was 15 years Sylvia's senior, and fighting in his first non-scripted MMA fight.
Mercer, always a good puncher, allowed the UFC champ a couple low kicks, then laid him out cold with one shot. It was settled in just nine seconds.

But at the press conference prior to fight, Sylvia and Mercer agreed that "A fight is a fight".
No truer words were ever spoken in combat sports.

In his non-preparation for his non-title 10 rounder with another UFC champion, Francis Ngannou, world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury would have done well to bear those words in mind.
Obviously fat, loose and playful; Fury nearly had his head handed to him, faced not with an MMA fighter from another discipline trying his hand at boxing; but a life-long Boxer who had applied his boxing skills adapted to the rules of MMA, and he had rolled all the best grapplers, wrestlers, kickboxers and martial-artists in the UFC up and smoked them. Moreover, Ngannou came in ready and determined.

Had Fury lost that razor thin verdict, his plans for a huge belt unification showdown with Oleksandr Usyk would have to had been placed on hold, to make way for a redeeming title fight with Ngannou. It was a very close call.

Now, we have another of the best heavyweights of this generation, 2-time multiple belt holder Anthony Joshua facing off against the upstart 2-sport superstar.
In this, we'll be able to see how much of Fury's close call was attributable to Tyson Fury's lackadaisical approach, and how much was Ngannou 's actual boxing talent, honed in the cage against other hybrid warriors.

My question is this:

How good must Anthony Joshua look against Ngannou to bolster his legacy?

We know that Ngannou can box pretty well, and punch great.
He's got to be considered a dangerous opponent for anyone, regardless of the rules, so long as those rules allow him to Box.

But Joshua, was thought to be building towards all-time greatness not so very long ago, as many observers saw him as a frontrunner among the three title claimants Fury, Wilder and Joshua at one point.
Since then, he has suffered some deep lows and most recently, some new highs, and genuinely appears to have recaptured the form that made him the biggest sporting star in the UK.

If A.J. looses this upcoming fight, he will no doubt suffer irreparable harm to his legacy, and possibly drop beneath Frank Bruno on the all-time rank of British Heavyweights, and below the Winner of the upcoming Wardley-Clarke clash in the current Domestic ratings; one has to believe.

But should he win impressively, and knock Francis Ngannou spark out, or somethingvery close to that; he will have outdone his countryman Fury, and perhaps, restored his star status in full.

How badly does Joshua have to beat this newcommer to satistfy you that he is indeed all that he was once thought to be?

Joshua and his fan base, infected with a rare strain of Covid that makes people confuse promoters with fighters always gets a pass when he beats opponents from the same soup packet as the other heavyweights. All the big fragile Nigerian has to really do is avoid getting smoked by his Cameroonian juggernaught of an opponent. I think he can manage that and make all those who love Eddie come out and declare his second coming.

But alas, the capacity for a train wreck in this fight, is probably on a par with the fated Golota Tyson encounter... If Ngannou finds a way, Joshua will not fight back like a cornered animal, rather he will regress to the last time he was really injured.

[billeau2]

- - Blubber been melting, rendered on a whaling ship of his own making for years now.

Blubber's become like shaky tottering Ali who couldn't box or bust a soap bubble vs Larry Holmes.

Where those big boy pants!!? That nugget coming out your nose is not a nugget of wisdom pearl!