BRITAIN is on the verge of a historic heavyweight undisputed title decider between Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury.
After Fury dethroned Deontay Wilder of the WBC crown in February, it set him up with a unification against WBA, IBF and WBO king AJ – who won those belts back off Andy Ruiz Jr last December.
But the heavyweight kings both have a final hurdle to get over before finally facing each other, with Joshua mandated to defend his titles against Kubrat Pulev and Fury obligated to face Wilder for a third time.
Should they come through their respected challenges, the biggest fight in British boxing history moves a step closer and will ultimately determine the division’s true No1.
But with both Fury, 31, and Joshua, 30, neck and neck, esteemed coach Teddy Atlas, trainer to 18 world champions, breaks down the super-fight and where it can be won and lost for either men.
TEDDY ATLAS
First of all, Fury has got to get past Wilder again, we assume he will but you get in trouble assuming things in this business, and Joshua has to keep on his feet against Pulev even if he doesn’t seem like a big threat.
Now, if you do get past that, and it’s an if, but if you do the easy pick for 90 per cent of the people you ask, you’d probably pick Fury.
I think he’s shown himself to be more durable, more inventive, obviously to be more adaptable in the respect one minute he’s boxing and then he’s pressing you forward.
The first fight against Wilder he boxes, gets a draw but most people thought he should’ve won and then the second time he goes into a different gears, pushes the fight and wins it.
The safe pick is Fury – but I look beyond that.
I think, ‘Wait a minute, who’s the guys whose had a compostable personal life?’ How do we know that’s not going to be a factor? How do we know he can stay at this level? So far he has and I give him all the credit in the world.
Then you look at Joshua; he gets knocked out, but the truth is he came back.
You have to give him credit and his team did a marvelous job in re-inventing him physically, mentally, technically – he was a different guy.
He went from looking like the Hulk with those great glistening muscles to all of a sudden becoming a slimmer version and he’s able to box and use his legs to outbox Ruiz.
Ruiz was was 280lb, that didn’t help his cause but you can only control what you can control and Joshua did go in there ready to redeem himself and he did it, he won.
So, you have two guys in Fury and Joshua that have shown the ability to adapt their styles.
Fury goes from a guy who has boxed his whole career but against maybe the most dangerous guy on the planet he goes and pushes forward.
Then you have the other guy who used to push forward and he decided to box, that would be Joshua.
They both have the ability to go either way.
But even in his last win against Ruiz, there was fragility there for Joshua, he looked fragile. There were times you’d say ‘Oh my God’ if you was a fan of his.
When they got close you thought he looked fragile, like he could be taken again, that he could be broken and hurt again.
For that, you might say Fury will push forward, be the man and he’ll be too durable mentally and physically for this guy.
But again, it’s two different styles and with Fury you just don’t know what you’re going to get.
You could see a scenario where Joshua boxes and makes Fury come after him and do what Wilder wasn’t capable of doing, and that’s counterpunching Fury.
Wilder wasn’t capable of setting traps, or going backwards, he wasn’t capable of any of that.
We could see Joshua show things we didn’t see in the Wilder rematch – Fury could walk into some counters, or maybe he doesn’t just walk forward and have his way.
Fury could have to deal with things he didn’t against Wilder, and he could wind up getting outboxed by Joshua, I can see that happening.
But if a gun was put to my head, right now, I’d go the easy way. I’d go with Fury. But you know what?
I would wait a bit of this. I could see an argument for both scenarios.
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
