Anthony Joshua is in a tricky position. He says he wants to fight Deontay Wilder, Joe Joyce or Luis Ortiz while he waits for Oleksandr Usyk to return from the front in Ukraine.
Joshua cannot afford to lose any interim encounter. So who does he fight? For me, Wilder is too dangerous. He is such a tremendous banger. He could switch anyone’s lights out in a heartbeat, no matter the defeats to Tyson Fury. Joshua stopped Joyce twice as an amateur but the pro game is different.
Joyce is tough and durable. He takes a good shot and has tremendous stamina. If Joshua does not get him out of there early it’s a hard night for him. Daniel Dubois has thrown his hat into the ring, which shows just how much the young guys fancy their chances against Joshua.
If I were managing Joshua I would not go near Dubois until I had to. He is young, aggressive, a devastating puncher and improving rapidly. Joshua seems confused about how he wants to fight. Rumour has it he spent the entire camp before for the Usyk defeat doing just technical sparring.
That means there was no all-out combat. Sparring is pointless unless you replicate the intensity in the ring. Joshua is fighting by numbers not by instinct. Perhaps he is doubting himself. He has been down twice in his career against Wladimir Klitschko and Andy Ruiz. Usyk had him in trouble. That plays on the mind of a fighter.
The way to come through that is to spar hard. Anyone can get knocked over. It’s part of the game. But you can’t enter a fight with doubts in your head. Joshua needs to learn to trust himself. If he wants to be champion again he has to get past what looks to me like a crisis of confidence.
In the fight game you can smell doubt. I only had to look at opponents to see how they were feeling. It doesn’t matter who Joshua fights, if he can’t fix the issue and get himself back mentally to where he was before the Ruiz defeat he is not going to beat anyone.
In that context his next fight is the most important of his career. Otto Wallin would be my choice. He is not a great puncher or mover. He is reasonably tough, and not difficult to find. Above all he would give Joshua the rounds he needs, and the chance to discover the fighter he really wants to be.
- Follow Barry on Twitter at @ClonesCyclone @McGuigans_Gym
