Lewis thinks Wladimir may retire if Joshua beats him

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis says IBF champion Anthony Joshua is facing the 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko at the right time in his career with him coming off of a loss to Tyson Fury and a 2-year layoff from boxing. In Lewis’ opinion, the Ukrainian Wladimir has lost his legs and can’t move as well as he could earlier in his career. Lewis thinks that Wladimir will hang up his gloves after a loss to the 27-year-old Joshua.

Lewis says he would retire if he were in Wladimir’s position and was beaten by Joshua. Wladimir’s manager Bernd Boente says he has no plans on ending his boxing career after Saturday night. It would take a lot for Wladimir to decide to hang up his boxing gloves and go into a permanent retirement. You can understand why Wladimir wouldn’t want to retire. He can still make a lot of money fighting in Germany in front of football stadium filled crowds if he wants to.

“I commend him for that and it’s the right time to go after him,” said Lewis about Joshua to Sky Sports News HQ. “Joshua is in great shape, he looks good, throws a fast jab and he’s got youth. Wladimir is 41 and he doesn’t have those great legs anymore. If Wladimir loses he may call it a day – if I was in his position I would,” said Lewis.

I disagree with Lewis about Wladimir not having his mobility any longer. If anything, Wladimir is moving better than ever or at least he was in his last 2 fights. Who knows what Wladimir is capable of doing after being out of the ring for 2 years? But in looking at how well Wladimir is moving around in the ring in his recent workout videos, I would say that Lewis is COMPLETELY wrong about him losing his mobility.

At 41, Wladimir looks much more mobile than the heavily muscled Joshua. There’s no comparison. Wladimir moves a lot better than Joshua, which is understandable. Joshua has a body building physique, and those types of fighters tend to be sluggish on their feet when it comes to their movement. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Joshua will never be good at moving around the ring. Joshua is a plodder. He needs his opponents to come to him. If Wladimir chooses to stick and move with his jab for 12 rounds, he could present a BIG challenge for Joshua, because he has a better jab than the 27-year-old Brit, and his mobility would make it difficult for him to catch up to him.

“Joshua is big, powerful and strong. Right now any time he steps into the ring he’s knocking everybody out,” said Lewis.

Yes, Joshua is knocking out everytbody he faces now, but look at the level of the guys that he’s facing: Eric Molina, Dominic Breazeale, Dillian Whyte, Charles Martin and Gary Cornish. You can throw those same fighters inside the ring with Deontay Wilder, Joseph Parker and Luis Ortiz and they would all likely be knocked out. Joshua’s win over Dillian Whyte should have an asterisk next to it due to Whyte suffering a shoulder injury in the 2nd round of that fight. Whyte had a problem with his left shoulder going into that match, but he still staggered Joshua. As such, we don’t know how good Joshua is because he’s not fighting the cream of the heavyweight division. He’s still fighting beatable guys.

Lewis says a loss for Joshua won’t be nearly as bad for him because he feels he’ll learn from the experience. I think it would still be bad for Joshua to lose to Wladimir depending on how he loses. If Joshua gets knocked cold with a head shot, then it will give other heavyweights the confidence to swing for the fences to nail him with similar head shots to try and knock him out. Right now, the fodder that has been facing Joshua has been acting afraid to throw punches. They obviously don’t believe they can hurt him with their big power shots.

A knockout loss by Joshua will give a lot of the top fighters in the heavyweight division the thought that they can knock him out too if they tag him with a big enough punch. What’s surprising is that the different fighters aren’t already swinging for the fences against Joshua, because there’s already video out there in Joshua’s past fights that he can be hurt by big head and body shots.

“I think Klitschko will come out and show something different. I think he will come out also a little bit aggressive, but controlled aggression. I think that’s what we are going to see from Klitschko,” said trainer Peter

I don’t think Wladimir is going to be any more aggressive than he has in his past fights. Wladimir would be playing into Joshua’s hands if he fought aggressively. If Wladimir had a brutal one-punch power like Deontay Wilder, then I would suggest he bounce right hands off Joshua’s head to see if he could poleaxe him. Wladimir doesn’t have that kind of power though.

Deontay is a special talent when it comes to his power. If Joshua tried to bum rush Wilder, he could be taken out with a single head shot and sent toppling face first onto the canvas. In fact, that’s what I see happening when Joshua and Wilder eventually tangle with each other in the future. Joshua will get knocked out with a single shot to the head because of his reckless style of fighting.

”If you’re Klitschko, you do what you do best,” said Ricky Hatton to skysports.com. ”You don’t want to fight with Anthony up close. Jab and move, try and walk him onto right hands, and then hold him and smother his work,” said Hatton.

Smothering is probably the best thing that Wladimir can do against Joshua. Honestly, Joshua does not have a great inside game. That’s why he was blasted out by Mihai Nistor. I’ve never seen Joshua dominate anyone from the inside. He’s not really an inside fighter. The only thing that makes Joshua dangerous on the inside is getting caught with one of his elbows or bumped hard and knocked off balance in a football move. Wladimir will need to make sure he grabs Joshua hard when in close, because he doesn’t need to get bumped hard or nailed one of his elbows. Those elbows are dangerous.

Wladimir would do well to throw left hooks when in punching range of Joshua because that’s by far his best punch in his arsenal. If Wladimir hits Joshua with one of his powerful left hooks, it could be game over for him. Joshua has a lot of muscles, but his head and midsection are just as vulnerable as they always were. If you look at how Mihai Nistor was giving Joshua problems with body shots and big power punches on the inside, he showed that his punch resistance is no better than a lot of the mediocre C-level fighters in boxing.

Joshua is going to try and unload on Wladimir with his big right hands early in the fight. The big crowd of 90,000 boxing fans at Wembley Stadium is going to cause Joshua to fight more aggressively than normal. If Wladimir is smart, he’ll take advantage of Joshua’s youth by timing him with a left hook or right hand when he tries to nail him with a big shot.