I think so too. Joshua's legs go and he takes a long time to get them back and Wilder likely hits harder and can turn up the windmill anytime.
Wilder gets stick for losing rounds, but he has never lost rounds like Joshua did here. This was a young Wlad style stomp down.
It made me dream of a 36 year old Toney being back out there.
Watching that, I greatly underestimated ruiz, I hope p4pming(or whatever name he's logged in as) / ykkkkkfskamis and anyone else who thought ruiz could/would win, has a good laugh at my awful predictions that I made here, weird stoppage but he did great and won well...
I would also make usyk a favourite over Joshua.
oshua will not fancy the rematch. Ruiz will be in better shape (that's the wrong word for Ruiz but you know what I mean) and he goes in knowing he can win. Joshua will be terrified to throw a punch and Ruiz will be waiting to counter anything he throws. Even if Joshua wins every heavyweight out there will be wanting a chance to crack that chin.
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Joshua did win rounds there though and in a rematch and chosen ref who won't let Ruiz work and an octopus game plan they might be able to do something. Plus the judges here seemed a bit iffy too. I would want Ruiz to win, but you never know. Joshua did make very poor mistakes here especially after the first KD and that is something that can be worked on. Distance, jab to body, movement, but Ruiz will stalk him and once those hands flow, you never know.
I was kind of waiting for an legitimate excuse from AJ. Every body shot looked like it really hurt him. He never recovered from the third round and was gassed. I guess he just legitimately lost. I try not to read too much into one loss but he was not impressive tonight
He's going to hesitate a lot more now. He's going to fight like Klitschko from now on, he's never going to have confidence in his chin again. Wasn't it Sultan Ibragimov that Klitschko fought in New York and it was the most boring fight ever? The rematch will look like that.
If anything Ruiz showed he can force the exchanges and it'll be more up to Joshua to set down, mentally and otherwise, on the right hand and know they're coming back. Ruiz did pretty good at getting small inside with quick shots and got Joshua rolling straight back standing tall for the longer stuff.
I think Ruiz can do it again, but there were a lot of things Joshua did wrong and mostly after the KD. He seemed to be fine until then. With a reach advantage alone all he has to do is bore with the jab and really dig in for clinches if Ruiz gets close. That worked at times here. But once he gets tagged and that is likely, then the same pattern likely returns. Joshua messed up big here. It makes the division far more interesting though.
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