Anthony Joshua is receiving criticism for having a fragile chin that could betray him in his fight against IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois on September 21st in London.
There’s concern whether Joshua will suffer a PTSD episode during the Dubois fight when the artillery rounds start coming down range onto his position, and he starts taking hits. He might panic under fire, experience a flashback, and crumble in the moment.
Whether Joshua’s fans want to acknowledge it or not, this is the biggest puncher Joshua will have faced since his fight against Wladimir Klitschko, and he would have lost that fight if not for the bizarre decision on the 41-year-old Wladimir’s part not to finish the job in the sixth.
AJ’s followers believe that he’s proven himself in his four-fight comeback that he can take a punch, but he hasn’t fought any punchers during that time to show whether he won’t have flashbacks.
“How can you criticize AJ now? He’s on the great run of his career, arguably. He’s had some great runs. There’s nothing to criticize him now,” said YouTuber Ariel Helwani to iFL TV, reacting to Anthony Joshua receiving criticism for having a fragile chin.
You’ve got to excuse Ariel for not being aware that Joshua’s last four fights were against tomato cans that his promoter Eddie Hearn dug up and fed AJ to help him recover after his meltdown after his second loss to Oleksandr Usyk on August 20, 2022.
That’s the fight where Joshua completely lost himself after the loss, grabbing Usyk’s belts and throwing them out of the ring in a bizarre moment. Hearn brought Joshua back by matching against the worst of the worst to ensure he wouldn’t lose again.
Joshua’s last four opponents:
– Francis Ngannou
– Robert Helenius
– Otto Wallin
– Jermaine Franklin
“The link up with [coach] Ben Davison has been amazing. He’s looked fantastic,” said Helwani about Joshua’s string of four confidence booster opponents against second-tier fighters.
AJ’s link-up with Ben Davison hasn’t proven anything other than he could beat fighters that anyone in the top 15 would beat. Davison gets credit, but what Joshua did, any trainer could have done the same. Joshua could have trained himself and beaten those four.
“That’s going to be fun, an all-British clash at Wembley. That’s going to be great. I don’t know how you can criticize,” said Ariel. “If you’re criticizing AJ at this juncture of his career in the streak that he’s on, you’re just being a hater.”
People who criticize Joshua for pointing out the obvious about his recent four soft opponents and the possibility that he could crumble should be commended. Again, Helwani isn’t a boxing guy.
He’s from the MMA world, so he may not realize how promoters in boxing use tricks to make their fighters like gold. They match him against weak opposition to make them look great, sell them to the public, and bring in viewers to the networks that show their fights. It’s different in MMA, where the best fight is the best.
That’s not how it’s done in boxing. Promoters ensure that their fighters face weak opposition to make them look good until they eventually put them in a massive money fight where they’re exposed to the light of day and get destroyed.
We saw that happen to Joshua. Hearn has matched him against four cans to make him look good, and naive casual fans have bought into it hook, line, and sinker.
“Don’t sleep on Duboius. Actually, Zhilei [Zhang] thought that Dubois might win, too,” said Helwani. “When Dubois lost to [Joe] Joyce, I thought it was very unfair how people were saying he’s a quitter and he doesn’t have a heart. What do you say about him now?”
Once Dubois starts landing his power shots on Joshua’s chin, there’s a good chance he’ll relieve that moment he suffered against Klitschko and Andy Ruiz and get taken out. Fans will wonder what happened. It was right in front of their faces, and if they’d opened their eyes. Joshua can no longer take a punch. It’s worse now, given many times he’s been hurt in fights and training camp.
“Did you see that performance against [Filip] Hrgovic? Maybe it just took him a little more time to evolve, mature and develop. Look at how he’s looked as of late,” said Ariel.
Dubois, 26, was thrown in the deep early in his career, matched against 2016 Olympic silver medalist Joe Joyce at 22 and Oleksandr Usyk at 24. It was early to fight those kinds of guys, but he’s learned and improved.
Now, at 26, Dubois is a different fighter than he was when he fought those guys, and he’s dangerous for Joshua.
“Of all the fights AJ has had recently in this run, which dates back to the Ben Davison link-up and after, Dubois will be the toughest one by far. Tougher than Otto Wallin, Robert Helenius, or Jermaine Franklin. I love Francis [Ngannou], but we know how the fight went. This will be the toughest fight, in my opinion,” said Ariel.
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