Anthony Joshua needs to find his confidence as pressure builds on ex-champ after 2-3 run in last four years
The elite boxers fight, at most, three times a year, and more often than not, just once or twice. The result of that is unfair to them in a way, because it magnifies the significance of each fight.
A loss in a 17-game NFL regular season isn't all that destructive to a quality team. It means even less in 82-game NBA and NHL seasons, and it's all but meaningless in a 162-game MLB season.
In boxing, though, if you fight once or twice a year, a loss is hugely significant. Three are four huge stars in boxing's heavyweight division: lineal champion Tyson Fury, unified champion Oleksandr Usyk and former champions Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua.
Fury fought twice in 2019, once in 2020 and 2021 and twice again in 2022. Usyk fought once each in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. Wilder fought twice in 2019 and once each in 2020, 2021 and 2022. And Joshua fought twice in 2019, and once in each of the last three years.
In the four years from 2019-2022, Fury has gone 6-0 with five KOs, Usyk has gone 4-0 with 1 KO, Wilder has gone 3-2 with three KOs and Joshua has gone 2-3 with one KO.
There is considerable pressure on Joshua when he meets Jermaine Franklin on April 1 in London. At BetMGM Pennsylvania, Joshua is a massive -1100 favorite to win, with Franklin at +550. If he loses to Franklin, it wouldn't be a shock if he chooses to retire. He'd be 2-4 in his last six, having gone through three trainers (Rob McCracken, Robert Garcia and Derrick James) in his last three fights and losing as a large favorite three times.
Fury and Usyk are at the top of the division and are expected to fight each other for the undisputed title at some point this year. Wilder is expected to fight Andy Ruiz sometime in the next few months. Fury and Usyk figures to be a fascinating tactical battle, with Usyk trying to play the role of giant-killer yet again.
Wilder and Ruiz should be a bombs-away, high-contact type of fight that should end fairly early, regardless of who wins (though it should be Wilder).
Joshua simply hasn't looked like a fighter who was desperate to win in a long time. He wasn't fully prepared for Ruiz in their first fight in 2019 and got himself knocked out. His response was to fight an extremely tentative, cautious fight in the rematch that got him a win but not much else.
He blew out Kubrat Pulev, but that was almost a set-up fight. He's so much better and more gifted than Pulev that had he lost there would have needed to be an investigation.
And then, in back-to-back fights against Usyk, he looked befuddled and got thoroughly outboxed by a much smaller man.
Joshua, is, without question, a huge physical talent. He's a massive man with the speed, quickness and agility of one much smaller. His jab, when he chooses to throw it with conviction, is a power punch, and he has the power in his right to knock anyone in the world out with one clean shot.
Too often with Joshua, though, the whole is far less than the sum of the parts. He's like a struggling golfer who thinks too much. Confident golfers who are playing well come up to a drive over water, pick a landing spot and hit the ball over the water and down the fairways. Nervous ones see the water, try to prevent from putting it in there, take a safe route and wind up dunking the ball and teeing up again hitting three.
That's Joshua in his fights. He has what it takes to win against anyone in the world, but sometimes, those on the outside believe it more than he does.
His choice to hire James as his trainer was a good one, as James is a brilliant boxing mind who gets the most out of his fighters. The problem before wasn't with what either McCracken or Garcia were saying to him; the problem was between Joshua's ears.
Franklin should know this and come out hard and give Joshua reason to doubt himself. James' job is going to be primarily to remove the doubt from Joshua's head and get him to fight passionately, aggressively and, more than anything else, confidently.
If Joshua does that, there are a number of good fights for him. If Fury beats Usyk, a Fury-Joshua fight for all the marbles would be huge. If Wilder KOs Ruiz, a Wilder-Joshua fight would be extraordinarily entertaining providing Joshua came into it thinking he could win.
It's all about mindset. Anthony Joshua has the tools he needs to ascend to the top. No one can be quite sure if he believes that himself, however.
