Anthony Joshua v Oleksandr Usyk 2

[Mark TKO]

if AJ thinks that overly-cautious "victory" against Ruiz makes him the comeback king, well, ................

I thought the same. There was an obvious strategy to beat Ruiz. Helped even more by ruiz being even less in shape. Fair play to joshua for using it though it was all about winning.

Usyk is not Ruiz

[Master]

Usyk looks huge and probably added the muscle because he knows AJ will attack him more than he did in the first fight. He probably wants to catch AJ coming in and deter him from being too aggressive.

AJ looks a bit lost from the interviews and I am having my doubts about him now.

[Master]

Froch told Betfred's Lightweight Boxing Show: "Sometimes a change is good, but for Anthony Joshua to beat Oleksandr Usyk, he needs a brain transplant. He's got all the physical attributes but I just don't think he can beat him."

Froch told iFL TV in another interview: 'I think it's going to be difficult for Joshua to beat Usyk in this rematch; it's going to be very difficult unless he changes his train of thought and his mindset.

"His mindset needs to be bang on. He needs to start believing in himself and go in that ring with all the confidence that he can and will do the job. If he goes in believing, he can achieve. "I just think since the Ruiz loss, he hasn't had that mindset and hasn't had that mentality of a winner. He just sort of got through the rematch with Ruiz, and I wasn't impressed with the (Kubrat) Pulev victory. "I've not seen that fire back in his belly. I don't think leaving Rob McCracken, I don't know it was a good decision or not, but I'm hoping it works out to be a good decision for him in terms of changing his mentality. "Maybe a change is as good as anything else when you have a rematch with somebody like Usyk because he needs to do something different. "It's a tough one for AJ. I'm not saying he can't do it, because he can, he has all the physical attributes. But he needs to get it right mentally. He needs to get his head right. If he doesn't believe in himself, he may as well not even bother turning up."

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/boxi...c8dc2148fb27d8

[Master]

“Sometimes I just force myself to smile,” he says. “Or I force myself to sing or to dance. But I don’t even know how to explain all of this. My children are asking: Father, why do they want to kill us?

“I just don’t know how to answer that.”

Within two days, Usyk was the new world heavyweight champion and he spoke with pure sincerity of his desire to celebrate by planting new trees and watering existing ones. “I want to live,” he had said.

“I really didn’t want to leave my country or my city,” he continues. “But at one point I went to a hospital where soldiers were wounded and getting rehabilitation from the war and they were telling me, asking me to go and fight for my country and for my pride. They told me that, if I go and fight there, I am even going to help our country more than if I stayed and fought in the war.

“I know a lot of my close friends are on the front line, standing and fighting, so all I am doing right now is supporting them. With this fight I want to bring them some joy in between what they do.”

Before his departure, Usyk was part of a territorial defence battalion in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and took part in armed patrols. “Every day I was there I would pray to the Lord, please don’t let anybody try to kill me,” he says. “Don’t let anybody shoot me and please don’t make me have to shoot any other person. But if I had felt any danger, or that me or my family’s lives were in jeopardy, I would have to.

“It took me only one day of the war to understand completely that everything I have, everything that I have achieved, all my belts, all my titles, I can lose it all in just one second.”

Dressed in a yellow and blue T-shirt that reads “Colours of Freedom”, Usyk also speaks about how he has kept in close contact with the compatriots he left behind to fight, which include fellow pound-for-pound great Vasyl Lomachenko. "He is good," Usyk says of his dear friend. “Loma is now a Ukrainian solder.”

Usyk has even had to watch footage of the house that he left vacant being ransacked by Russian soldiers.

“My family are not in Ukraine, but a lot of people I know and a lot of my close friends are inside the country,” he says. “I am in touch with them every day, I am asking them for updates.

“I want to hear how they’re feeling and that they are safe. I didn’t want to leave the country. I want to live there still. Straight after the fight I will go back to Ukraine.

“That house in Vorzel belongs to me, and it’s true that Russian soldiers went into the house, broke a fence and all sorts of different things. They made living spaces and stayed there for a while.”

When asked whether he may cut himself off from such troubling updates as the fight grows closer, Usyk shakes his head. “I’m going to be following every single day to hear what’s happening in my country,” he says.

“I don’t even think about him or whatever he wants to do, his new tactics or new trainers,” Usyk says of Joshua, who recently added Robert Garcia to his coaching team. “I really don’t care – I’m only thinking about what I want to do.

“When I fight, I don’t think about what I’m supposed to do, only about winning. We are working very hard and trying to be better in this next fight. We are making new goals and with the Lord’s help, yes, we are going to be better.

“Since I was 16 years old I prayed to the Lord, and every time I feel things getting very difficult for me, I thank him. I thank him for what he’s doing to me.

“I think that’s what puts me where I am right now. I believe someone is looking after me.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/boxi...c8dc2148fb27d8

[NoSavingByTheBell]

At the neural level, at the psychiatric level, AJ was marketed into being this huge Adonis and he went along with it. But the fire was really never there. I give him credit for his victory over Klit, and this will FOREVER be looked upon as his shining moment in the sun. So AJ in a way can sort of be looked upon as a Leon Spinks or a Buster Douglas kind of flash in the pan really. A big huge guy like that, ripped with muscles, he fills all the visual reqs and checks all the boxes. Thing was and still is, if the fire aint there, the fire aint there.

[Master]

At the neural level, at the psychiatric level, AJ was marketed into being this huge Adonis and he went along with it. But the fire was really never there. I give him credit for his victory over Klit, and this will FOREVER be looked upon as his shining moment in the sun. So AJ in a way can sort of be looked upon as a Leon Spinks or a Buster Douglas kind of flash in the pan really. A big huge guy like that, ripped with muscles, he fills all the visual reqs and checks all the boxes. Thing was and still is, if the fire aint there, the fire aint there.

Leon and Buster never successfully defended the titles the way AJ did. AJ is better than those two. If I had to compare AJ to past heavyweights it would be Ernie Terrell, 6 ft 6inches, muscle, paper champ whilst the real heavyweight was Ali.

[Master]

Anthony Joshua has revealed that Robert Garcia is not actually his main boxing coach ahead of his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.

Instead, that honour falls to Rob McCracken’s former second, Angel Fernandez.

The British superstar was speaking on The DAZN Boxing Show on Thursday when he made the stunning revelation.

He chatted to reporters at a press conference to promote his second fight with Usyk as both men touched down in London for the second leg of their promotional world tour.

AJ was then asked about his decision to change trainers, which has been the subject of much debate, including appointing Garcia, who has won countless titles as a boxer and a coach.

But Joshua admitted he let Fernandez influence his next move.

He revealed: “I think it’s important that my coach made the decisions, Angel Fernandez.

“That’s the guy we appointed as the UK head trainer so I felt like it was important for Angel to choose.

“I like Robert Garcia, I think he’s very talented so I put his name on the list along with about four or five others, so he went to see different people and then I left it to Angel and the team to say ‘look, this is who we want to appoint.’”

Joshua was quick not to shut the door completely on McCracken, having spent almost the entirety of his career at the Team GB setup in Sheffield, adding: “I don’t call it parting with Rob – just in a training capacity, yeah for sure.

“The respect’s still there, Rob is welcome to the training camp at anytime and give his two pence.

“I feel every fighter right, in my opinion, should be able to go out into the world and learn from other people.

“It’s so important for a fighter to develop their skills with different coaches, don’t feel locked down and feel like you’re parting ways because you’re trying something new or you’re trying to learn something new.

“Yeah I’m with a different team for the fight but that doesn’t mean that I’m just parting ways.

“Who knows, in the future I might say, ‘Hey Rob, can you come back and train me?’

“It’s not like because I’ve parted ways now that’s what it is forever.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/boxi...edb887dd1cf167

[Spicoli]

At the neural level, at the psychiatric level, AJ was marketed into being this huge Adonis and he went along with it. But the fire was really never there. I give him credit for his victory over Klit, and this will FOREVER be looked upon as his shining moment in the sun. So AJ in a way can sort of be looked upon as a Leon Spinks or a Buster Douglas kind of flash in the pan really. A big huge guy like that, ripped with muscles, he fills all the visual reqs and checks all the boxes. Thing was and still is, if the fire aint there, the fire aint there.

Leon and Buster never successfully defended the titles the way AJ did. AJ is better than those two. If I had to compare AJ to past heavyweights it would be Ernie Terrell, 6 ft 6inches, muscle, paper champ whilst the real heavyweight was Ali.

And neither one came remotely close to having the title pre packaged for them the way AJ did and they remained in underdog status. Where would AJ be had he squared off with the Tokyo Tyson as well as Holyfield waiting for him 7 months later. All hypothetical we know but thus far I have to give Buster the nod for coming back from most overall career adversity/low point..if only a night .