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- #41
I don't reckon his jaw is as bad as the pundits make out. Klitchko had him down but he got up to get a TKO. Ruiz blitzed him but he came straight back to win the rematch. You don't get off the canvas to TKO someone or win an immediate rematch against someone who destroyed you without a decent jaw and a lot of heart. And plenty of fighters with iron jaws stay on the canvas when they're exhausted. Joshua's issue is his muscles IMO, he'd be a lot better with Lewis's build, not fat but not built either. He probably makes a lot less money without the adonis image though.
Fighters builds are interesting, Buster Douglas at the correct weight took out the heavily muscled Tyson and looked comfortable, even Tyson at his best would have been troubled by Buster I believe.
I get what you mean, Anthony Joshua is not a flower, glass jaw is a little lazy on my part to describe his resilience.
He does get caught by counter punchers hey, bit of a gym Bunny Robot in that regard compared to Lewis.
What I do not like about AJ when he is being hit is that his legs seem to go a lot when he gets caught, as you say though, he fights on to the death where others tap out.
I thought it was telling when AJ kept asking his corner what punch got him in trouble vs Ruiz, that to me revealed to me you can get inside his head (he was not expecting Ruiz to trouble him by the look of all the smiling from in that fight till that moment).
You would remember when Lewis was younger and had a body builders physique....that was when he was getting caught and dropped (although factoring in experience vs inexperience - add years of work with Emanuel Steward from 1994 after Oliver McCall took his belt). Mind you McCall was a massive hitter and should have been a name in the division for a long time, horrible what happened to him in the rematch while still in drug withdrawal...crying in the ring.....turning his back on Lewis....having a mental break down on TV.
I digress, the best fighters of all time have reached that peak when their physiques have been natural.
Also Lennox Lewis is one of the most underrated (outside of the UK) all time heavy weights, I believe he would have cleaned out this generation with ease/and he and a young Vlad Klitcho would would have been exciting if Lewis was not aged....I preferred Vitali though of the brothers.
AJ did seem high on his own image for a time, have to be careful leveling that criticism mind, because ego is a weapon in itself in the fight game, the Greatest had the biggest ego persona seen in any sport and has not been topped by anyone....many a sportsman has tried to copy Ali's crazy man self hypnosis I AM THE GREATEST and none have channeled it without looking like an imitation.
When it comes to natural builds, it would be interesting to see if the skinny Ali, the one in the Iconic poster staring down at his opponent, could have done a Ropa dope vs Big George Foreman and absorbed the body shots like the older less svelte Ali version II did (moot point because young Ali would never stand in front of George anyway).
A lot of people make arguments about how Ali was a lesser fighter post the Vietnam human rights abuses by the United States, I think the answer is more nuanced and layered, I think Ali pre and post the lay off showed how an athletes build in boxing is as much about how comfortable a fighter feels in their own skin as it is about having abs and no body fat.
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