The Boxing thread

Absolutely fair there was a rematch clause against Ruiz who was given a shot out of the blue. As mandatory, the Usyk one is slightly different. There is an arguement to be made that rematch clauses shouldn't be in mandatory challenges but did you not hear what the Usyk management said? THEY wanted the rematch clause because they know a fight v Joshua with a 70/30 split in their favour is mega bucks.
Yep, there's also the argument that no other belt organisation to my knowledge has the rule that got Usyk his title shot. He didn't earn it by competing in an eliminator as with most mandatory positions. He was given it simply because he held the WBO at Cruiserweight. With the Fury vs Wider situation it's different. Fury was a voluntary cherry pick(out of shape Fury) gone wrong. The rematch was a voluntary too because Fury signed with Toprank and had two tuneups after that fight instead(turned down the fight with AJ that Wilder was offered), they had a "gentleman's agreement" to come back to that fight. Now they will be fighting a 3rd time, despite nobody seeing the need for it, despite the WBC not enforcing a mandatory for 2 years. Fury won the first two fights already on most peoples cards. Neither of them will have fought for 18months or so, when they meet in the ring again because of their antics. What's happening over there with WBC situation, is much much worse.

Ruiz Jr was gifted a title shot as a 3rd or 4th choice replacement for Miller, who popped dirty for a list of PEDs. There's no reason there shouldn't have been a rematch clause for a voluntary. Hearn would have been stupid not to put one in, it's HW boxing after all.

Miller was going to be a voluntary. They chose him because he was fairly highly ranked at the time, while the fight was booked for the MSG in New York and he's a New York fighter who talks a big game.

Ortiz was first choice replacement(probably because it was Wilder's best win). They went back with an improved offer, to try and convince him, before moving on to alternatives.

Kownacki was the next one to get the call. Based on him being based in New York his whole career(from the amateurs onwards), with a fairly big following from the Polish community there. He turned it down, saying he wasn't ready for the fight. He doesn't seem very disciplined in between fights to be fair, so that might have been a legitimate reason to turn it down. He was exposed by Robert Helenius 9 months later, where he was stopped in front of a stunned NYC crowd. I think the PBC were ready to feed him to Wilder, as another hyped name on his resume, before that loss. So maybe they wouldn't have let him take that fight, even if he wanted it.

I have the feeling I'm forgetting someone but I will stop there.

Ruiz Jr fought Dimitrenko on the 20th April and beat him inside 5 rounds. His team confirmed a meeting was scheduled with Hearn on the 22nd and the terms were agreed within a week for a fight in June. He had no time at all to get out of shape which probably suited him. The fact that he came in heavier, shows that was part of their strategy(absorbing punishment better at a heavier weight).
 
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Where does it end? If Joshua beats Usyk in the rematch do they have a third fight? If Usyk wins that do they have a fourth?

If a champion is beat in a close fight then fair enough.

But if he’s completely outboxed/outfought or knocked out then they should fight their way back to the top IMO.

That doesn’t mean someone like AJ should start fighting bums. A fight and victory against a top 5 ranked fighter should put him firmly back in title contention.

If Usyk is as superior as you say, he'd beat him again just as comfortably. The only argument against is fear.
 
If Usyk is as superior as you say, he'd beat him again just as comfortably. The only argument against is fear.

This isn’t an argument about who is the better boxer. The argument is that rematch clauses do nothing but hold up the rest of the division.

With the Fury/Wilder trilogy and the Joshua/Usyk rematch that could easily result in another trilogy, there could be a situation where no other fighter gets a look in at a title shot for 18 months. That is not good in a sporting perspective.

The only fear I see is from the champion in the first place who insists on them.
 
This isn’t an argument about who is the better boxer. The argument is that rematch clauses do nothing but hold up the rest of the division.

With the Fury/Wilder trilogy and the Joshua/Usyk rematch that could easily result in another trilogy, there could be a situation where no other fighter gets a look in at a title shot for 18 months. That is not good in a sporting perspective.

The only fear I see is from the champion in the first place who insists on them.
Since it was a mandatory, Usyk didn't have to accept the rematch clause. If they can't come to an agreement in a reasonable time frame, the belt organisation committee(WBO in this case) will step in and it goes to purse bids, without any rematch clause. AJ would have to go ahead with it or be stripped of the WBO in that case. Usyk offered no resistance to the rematch clause anyway, his manager said so after the fight. The hold up was probably the venue and financial terms for each fighter.
 
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I watched the fight on DAZN with Spanish commentary. After two rounds I thought Joshua was doing all right - won the second and might have nicked the first although on replay I gave it to Usyk. Looked on Twitter and everyone was saying he was getting destroyed?!

After 6 rounds it was 3-3 and after 8 it was 4-4. I thought after round 2 the fight was really easy to score.

There’s the obvious overreaction to an AJ loss but he can beat Usyk. Considering how few times he caught him Usyk’s face was a mess and he was really hurt by every body shot. AJ’s issue is durability. I don’t think he was fighting scared or he even thought he could out box him I just think the whole night was about not gassing because he knew as soon as he was gassed Usyk would annihilate him. The lack of commitment in his punches was a real concern. The only way he can win the rematch is with a much higher output, more grappling, stiffer jabs and attacking the body. That can only be done by making it a 6 round fight and accepting if he can’t get him out he’ll either have to quit or get sparked out himself.

I think Joshua's issue is that he is most certainly trying to show more boxing skill and craft when he just doesn't have it. Against Klitschko he got picked off but then came back and landed his own blows which won him the fight.

Against Ruiz it was fairly similar. He got caught and was rattled but then landed his own and went in for the kill before being picked off again and lost. In the rematch he was fully focussed on not getting hit and looking to use his superior fitness to win on points. It was a smarter strategy for that fight.

Usyk was always going to be hard to beat over 12 rounds. Joshua should have looked to be more aggressive because the weight difference meant in pure punching power he could have probably worn a fair few hits whilst going for the knockout.

I think he can win the rematch if he goes with that strategy, but Fury is on a different planet to Joshua for boxing ability. Anyone can score a lucky shot though and stranger things have happened. It would still be good to see it but a lot less interesting than if all the belts were on the line.
 
I think Joshua's issue is that he is most certainly trying to show more boxing skill and craft when he just doesn't have it. Against Klitschko he got picked off but then came back and landed his own blows which won him the fight.

Against Ruiz it was fairly similar. He got caught and was rattled but then landed his own and went in for the kill before being picked off again and lost. In the rematch he was fully focussed on not getting hit and looking to use his superior fitness to win on points. It was a smarter strategy for that fight.

Usyk was always going to be hard to beat over 12 rounds. Joshua should have looked to be more aggressive because the weight difference meant in pure punching power he could have probably worn a fair few hits whilst going for the knockout.

I think he can win the rematch if he goes with that strategy, but Fury is on a different planet to Joshua for boxing ability. Anyone can score a lucky shot though and stranger things have happened. It would still be good to see it but a lot less interesting than if all the belts were on the line.
Sorry but some of that's just not true, AJ is a very good boxer compared to the vast majority of the top HWs, he's just not as good as Usyk(nobody else is either on his boxing ability, not even Fury).

AJ was easily up on the cards after 5 rounds against Wlad. He'd won at least 3 of the first 4 and scored a knockdown in the 5th. A lot of people, including 2 of the judges, had AJ winning all of the opening 5 rounds.

https://www.boxingscene.com/schedule/event/anthony-joshua-vs-wladimir-klitschko--139/scorecard

AJ punched himself out in the 5th round, thinking the job was done and Wlad was all over it in the closing stages of the 5th round and very nearly knocked AJ down(which is why some scored the fifth a 10-9 round to AJ rather than a 10-8). Not forgetting, the most rounds AJ had ever done in a fight was 7 rounds up until then(Whyte and Breazeale) and he wasn't tested nearly as much in those fights. His inexperience played a big part and the Wlad fight clearly swung back and forth. So this idea that Wlad was schooling him until AJ got a lucky punch in the 11th is a complete myth. AJ had to go into survival mode from the start of 6th round but he had weathered the storm by the end of the 9th round. He was jabbing with a very educated jabber in the first 5 rounds before that and more than holding his own on his boxing ability.

He was up against Ruiz Jr after 2 rounds, in what were cagey rounds with limited action and he was winning the 3rd after putting him down. He appeared to get carried away here too, missed a lot of punches by swinging blindly. Ruiz Jr didn't need to move his head, he had his eyes closed himself when he found that counter behind the ear. After being hurt in the 3rd round, you can't really say it was AJ's boxing ability that was causing him the problems he had. He wasn't right that night to begin with and there was a reason his stamina plummeted so drastically so early in that fight(a thyroid condition which had affected him even before the Ruiz Jr training camp, that's what needed surgery IMO). People make excuses about the weight of Ruiz Jr but AJ was always outboxing Ruiz Jr with that gameplan. Ruiz Jr never had good feet, never was great at cutting off the ring, keeping him at range was always the easiest way to beat him.

Against Usyk, AJ may not have shown Usyk like stamina and he was absolutely spent in that 12th round but the work he got through over 12 rounds was still impressive for a man of his size. If he can build on that, he will be harder to beat for anyone else at HW, who have nothing like Usyk's fitness levels.
 
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Where does it end? If Joshua beats Usyk in the rematch do they have a third fight? If Usyk wins that do they have a fourth?

If a champion is beat in a close fight then fair enough.

But if he’s completely outboxed/outfought or knocked out then they should fight their way back to the top IMO.

That doesn’t mean someone like AJ should start fighting bums. A fight and victory against a top 5 ranked fighter should put him firmly back in title contention.
Don’t think Trevor Berbick was ever demanding Iron Mike get back in the ring with him
 
This isn’t an argument about who is the better boxer. The argument is that rematch clauses do nothing but hold up the rest of the division.

With the Fury/Wilder trilogy and the Joshua/Usyk rematch that could easily result in another trilogy, there could be a situation where no other fighter gets a look in at a title shot for 18 months. That is not good in a sporting perspective.

The only fear I see is from the champion in the first place who insists on them.
Usyk got a title shot without really earning it, so that argument doesn't hold. If Usyk is so good, he beats Joshua, Joshua's had his champion's privilege and Usyk moves on. If Usyk can't do the job, we get another match to settle the score like all good trilogies where both guys were good enough to beat each other.

A champion without a rematch clause is an idiot. It's his livelihood and in the world of fighting, if you're the challenger and believe you can step up and beat him once, you believe can beat him again. The onus is on the challenger to prove himself, the champion holds the cards as he should do for holding the belt, the rematch is part of that privilege.

You don't want 3? Do what Froch did to Groves and knock him the fuck out.
 

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