Anthony Joshua showed spite in his latest knock-out win, says Johnny Nelson
Vicious streak will serve him well, reckons Sky Sports pundit
Monday 13 October 2014 20:45, UK
Anthony Joshua showed us his dark side on Saturday night.
He loved beating Denis Bakhtov up. He was smiling as he did it. He was licking his lips. He showed us an intent. He came across as vicious.
With Anthony Joshua it’s guaranteed that you’ll get something vicious. If you haven’t got it yet you’re biting your nails waiting for it to happen.
Saying “I want to hurt him” in his interview was reminiscent of Mike Tyson. People watch him to see him knock people out. Like Tyson, people tune in who aren’t even boxing fans. That’s the crossover appeal that Anthony has.
He comes across as a gentle giant, a nice guy but he’s not always – he’s got some hunger, he’s got some desire and I was really impressed with that. I thought ‘there you go’. There was something missing, and for me he ticked that box.
Put it this way, I never saw that dark side from Frank Bruno. We knew Frank could punch and could get involved, but he’d get exposed by orthodox brawlers. But Anthony, although we’re only scratching the surface with him, looks like he’s got that.
Everybody loves him and everybody is impressed but nobody has ever seen that side of him. If you knew that side of him it might turn some people off! The only time he exposes it is when he’s fighting so maybe he doesn’t want to show you that side of him, but he needs to let his opponents know it is there.
You can talk about going the rounds but everybody wants to see him knocking people out. You can ask ‘can he go the distance’ and I’m sure he can because that’s what you train to do – the fighting is the easy side of it.
I believe he can do the rounds but in reality do you want to see that? If he’s in a dogfight and he’s smashing somebody for 10 rounds then yes, let’s see it. But the excitement is not ‘if’, it’s ‘when’ and ‘how’ he knocks someone out.
With Anthony Joshua it’s guaranteed that you’ll get something vicious. If you haven’t got it yet you’re biting your nails waiting for it to happen.
The questions are still ‘what happens when he gets hit, what happens when he has to fight?’. Bakhtov gave him a test for his level and Anthony came through with flying colours.
Future fights
Michael Sprott is a top-class sparring partner but unfortunately has that mentality when he’s fighting. Joshua can’t afford a lackadaisical, laid-back attitude against him. He needs to get him out of there as quickly as possible.
Sprott knows far more than Joshua will ever know about how to survive – but I believe Anthony will stop him.
I was next to David Price at ringside and you could see he was impressed, he was looking on enviously like a fan. But he also said if he fights Joshua he’d knock him out. Price said he’d impressed but also said ‘I’ll knock him out, I’m the hardest puncher in the heavyweight division’.
This is a fight that we know is on a collision course. Domestically there’s an array of fighters to put Joshua in with. Without a doubt he’ll meet Price next summer because they’ll run out of opponents for Joshua.
Lee Selby
Lee Selby seems to have escalated and glided up. In boxing Selby’s stoppage of Joel Brunker is considered very good.
These guys have had some serious wars in the gym. But fighting and sparring are different. I used to have wars with people I sparred with. One opponent who I sparred before we boxed used to try and fight me in the gym because he thought he could beat me. When it came to boxing he got stopped.
Selby’s the same, he probably doesn’t spar as well as he boxes. He looked a completely different class even though, in sparring, those two had some serious tear-ups.
On that performance he looks like a future world champion. The last couple had been a little flat and left you underwhelmed. He’s gone up levels and can’t afford that anymore – if you think getting a world title is hard, try keeping it.
Tyler Goodjohn
After the heated face-off the day before we knew that this fight would escalate into something special!
On paper, Goodjohn wasn’t expected to pull off a win over Ricky Boylan, so good on him. He was experienced enough to deal with somebody fresh and tough who would put him under pressure and take him to the wire. For Goodjohn experience is everything, you can’t buy it or pretend to have it. The experience he had was enough to beat his man.
John Ryder
I think John Ryder's lack of experience is why he lost to Billy Joe Saunders. He didn’t think he had the energy or the tank to deal with him - and only realised he had a lot more when it was too late. Ryder said 'I had more but I didn't put it on him' but that's what you learn as a fighter.
I’ve always rated Ryder and I think he will potentially fulfil his goal and start collecting some domestic titles.
