Anthony Joshua's next move

[MoneyKing]

This bum AJ could be fighting Whyte or Charr next.

[11player]

All very murky out there, Hearn hiding the truth.

The Fury fight might be signed for the second semester.

Charr makes no sense, Wilder might become viable after june

[NihonJim]

His confidence is completely shot and never coming back, he gets hit anywhere above his nipple line and he has a panic attack.

[Willow The Wisp]

This bum AJ could be fighting Whyte or Charr next.

As a fight fan, published writer and called upon historian who grew up in combat sports; I'm always amazed that there are fans out there with the temerity to call any ranked boxer a "bum".
Nobody who does that would do it to a ranked fighter's face. That's for sure.

And why is Joshua a "bum"?
Maybe a few fighters short of being the best of his era, for sure; but look at him like this:

Francis Ngannou is one of the best heavyweights that MMA has ever produced. Within that very popular, open rules combat sport's short history; Fedor Emelianenko, Mirko Filipovic, Cain Velasquez and Stipe Miocic are the only fighters that can be mentioned in the same breath with Ngannou. Josh Barnett, Frank Mir, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, John Jones, Fabricio Werdum, Randy Couture, Junior Dos Santos, Tim Sylvia, Alistair Overeem, Daniel Cormier, Brock Lesnar, Andrei Arlovski, Bas Rutten and Mark Colmen are unlikely to be favored against Ngannou, as would any other MMA fighter, ever.

And yet.....Ngannou is a 100% pure boxer who took crash courses in kickboxing, wrestling and submission grappling to round himself out, and came to dominate the MMA world as thoroughly as any big man ever has.

And he quit the UFC world title to focus on the Boxing that owned that sport; got as sharp as he could....... And fought Joshua.

Joshua sent him out in a stretcher, with a slick combination. Early.

So that win by Joshua; a minor fight for him; rolled up Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Savate, Greco-Roman, Sumo, Sambo, Kung-fu, Taekwon-do, Muay Thai, Kickboxing and everything else under the sun into one neat spliff; and Joshua smoked it.

That ain't no bum, tough guy.

[Joseph]

Toward the unemployment line.

[ELPacman]

As a fight fan, published writer and called upon historian who grew up in combat sports; I'm always amazed that there are fans out there with the temerity to call any ranked boxer a "bum".
Nobody who does that would do it to a ranked fighter's face. That's for sure.

And why is Joshua a "bum"?
Maybe a few fighters short of being the best of his era, for sure; but look at him like this:

Francis Ngannou is one of the best heavyweights that MMA has ever produced. Within that very popular, open rules combat sport's short history; Fedor Emelianenko, Mirko Filipovic, Cain Velasquez and Stipe Miocic are the only fighters that can be mentioned in the same breath with Ngannou. Josh Barnett, Frank Mir, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, John Jones, Fabricio Werdum, Randy Couture, Junior Dos Santos, Tim Sylvia, Alistair Overeem, Daniel Cormier, Brock Lesnar, Andrei Arlovski, Bas Rutten and Mark Colmen are unlikely to be favored against Ngannou, as would any other MMA fighter, ever.

And yet.....Ngannou is a 100% pure boxer who took crash courses in kickboxing, wrestling and submission grappling to round himself out, and came to dominate the MMA world as thoroughly as any big man ever has.

And he quit the UFC world title to focus on the Boxing that owned that sport; got as sharp as he could....... And fought Joshua.

Joshua sent him out in a stretcher, with a slick combination. Early.

So that win by Joshua; a minor fight for him; rolled up Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Savate, Greco-Roman, Sumo, Sambo, Kung-fu, Taekwon-do, Muay Thai, Kickboxing and everything else under the sun into one neat spliff; and Joshua smoked it.

That ain't no bum, tough guy.

Well, let's be real, even if Ngannou knows all those martial arts, they were only under 1 ruleset in boxing. So whoever was the better at that craft would win and that's why Ngannou did not belong in the ring with AJ, nor did he really with Fury. The fact that Fury did not do the same as AJ only goes to show how little Fury trained or took Ngannou as a threat under the boxing rules.

Regardless, I'm up and down with AJ. His fans can be annoying as any fanbase has, but I respect that he fought a lot of the big heavyweights in the sport that had name recognition. If even if they weren't all top tier. The only real opponents to haunt him if he doesn't face them would be Fury and Wilder, both of which are a little too late at this point for anyone to really care. AJ looks spent, Wilder is clearly spent and Fury lost twice to Usyk which took his aura of invincibility away.

Though yeah, the bum talk gets thrown around too much on the forums. I've tried to move away from using simple words and putting context as to why I believe someone may not either lived up to the hype or no longer good. AJ is past the word "bum" that can be applied to him or even hype. The dude is about to retire in a fight or two. The hype is long gone.

[RingoKid]

Top rockin' into crazylegs, face plant, head spin and possibly windmill...

B-boy Josh got all da movez!!!

[SUBZER0ED]

As a fight fan, published writer and called upon historian who grew up in combat sports; I'm always amazed that there are fans out there with the temerity to call any ranked boxer a "bum".
Nobody who does that would do it to a ranked fighter's face. That's for sure.

And why is Joshua a "bum"?
Maybe a few fighters short of being the best of his era, for sure; but look at him like this:

Francis Ngannou is one of the best heavyweights that MMA has ever produced. Within that very popular, open rules combat sport's short history; Fedor Emelianenko, Mirko Filipovic, Cain Velasquez and Stipe Miocic are the only fighters that can be mentioned in the same breath with Ngannou. Josh Barnett, Frank Mir, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, John Jones, Fabricio Werdum, Randy Couture, Junior Dos Santos, Tim Sylvia, Alistair Overeem, Daniel Cormier, Brock Lesnar, Andrei Arlovski, Bas Rutten and Mark Colmen are unlikely to be favored against Ngannou, as would any other MMA fighter, ever.

And yet.....Ngannou is a 100% pure boxer who took crash courses in kickboxing, wrestling and submission grappling to round himself out, and came to dominate the MMA world as thoroughly as any big man ever has.

And he quit the UFC world title to focus on the Boxing that owned that sport; got as sharp as he could....... And fought Joshua.

Joshua sent him out in a stretcher, with a slick combination. Early.

So that win by Joshua; a minor fight for him; rolled up Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Savate, Greco-Roman, Sumo, Sambo, Kung-fu, Taekwon-do, Muay Thai, Kickboxing and everything else under the sun into one neat spliff; and Joshua smoked it.

That ain't no bum, tough guy.

Haters are gonna hate, Wisp, no matter what.

[Bennyleonard99]

His value dropped from the two very close decision losses to Usyk and there is no demand to see him against anyone but Fury or Wilder. He is still the no. 2 heavyweight out there and still being ducked by Fury. The AJ novelty has worn off and his era is about over.

[deathofaclown]

His confidence is completely shot and never coming back, he gets hit anywhere above his nipple line and he has a panic attack.

Especially now. Every time he's been hurt or does down, he gets more mentally ruined...imagine now he's been absolutely iced for the first time in the last fight. He won't recover.

If he fights Fury next, Fury will destroy him, if it's the version of Fury that fought Usyk, even if he lost those fights.

There's two kinds of fighters. Ones that can get knocked down or knocked out and still be game for a fight. Like Fury, we've seen him badly hurt but it doesn't mentally affect him. I even put Dillian Whyte in that category, he's been flattened a few times but isn't scared of a fight, even if he's not particularly great.

AJ is the other type. Every frightening moment takes something away from him. I don't see how he deals with getting a beating and then flattened for a 10 count.