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meIt was a good try. “Boxing is about less talk, more action,” Anthony Joshua barked unusually connected in the immediate blaze of his best performance since the night three years ago when Wladimir Klitschko’s career ended.
Unfortunately, it isn’t, AJ. Without the talk, nobody walks. The fighters fight, but only when the deal is done.
Yet even as the mangled remains of Kubrat Pulev wriggled in front of him on the mat after Saturday night’s doomed but spirited challenge at Wembley Arena, the old Bulgarian conqueror was in no mood for cliches or platitudes.
There was a light tapping of gloves, a brief acknowledgment of their excellent, tense and entertaining fight, but little else. No smiles or hugs. The winner also did not give his payers the quotes they wanted. Sky Sports was looking for snippets about the fight that mattered far more than this: against Tyson Fury, next door in front of a packed house at Wembley Stadium in the height of summer, with Covid-19 as a fading memory, and perhaps a second in Cardiff. This had been an appetizer; what everyone wants is the grande bouffe.
The champion was not in the mood. After nearly half an hour of throwing and dodging health-threatening leather, knocking his opponent down in the third, punching him and uppercuting him to pieces and then leveling him for a full count in the ninth, Joshua returned the easy questions. “I really don’t want to do an interview,” he said.
The most cooperative celebrity in the business, a smiling, friendly guy who asks journalists as many questions as they ask him, who opens supermarkets while he sleeps, was not going to perform. Not tonight. “I just want the fans to appreciate the hard work,” he said. “Everyone go home and have a beautiful Christmas, and we will meet in 2021.”
Eddie Hearn was left to fill in the gaps. The Matchroom supreme said of the talk that will make this fight go “:” We are going to be friendly, we are going to be friendly, but we know what we have to do. Starting tomorrow, we do the Tyson Fury fight right away. It’s the only fight in boxing, it’s the biggest fight in boxing, it’s the biggest fight in British boxing history. I know you want it. He is the best heavyweight in the world. I promise you it will break, knock him down, knock him out. We will do it “.
You could almost hear Joshua saying to himself, “Better, buddy.” Within an hour, Fury was on social media to tell the world that he would knock out Joshua in three rounds. “Anthony Joshua just screwed up live on TV,” Fury said in a video posted to Instagram. “They asked him if he wanted the fight and he went around the bushes.” At least one of the protagonists was playing his role in this pantomime.
Whatever Joshua did or didn’t mean in that emotional moment standing in front of a microphone in the ring, he’s just as desperate to put his IBF, WBA, WBO and IBO belts on the line as Fury is to lift his WBC title. And that could be the source of Joshua’s irritability after the fight.
Hearn has said that Joshua is happy to split the winnings 50-50, which is a serious carrot to seal a deal. Maybe Joshua isn’t that keen on that splitting of a pot likely to exceed £ 200 million on the way to creating boxing history, with a little help from Sky, Fury and the media.
You may consider this hugely impressive victory – his 24th, his 22nd by stoppage, his 10th as champion and a declaration victory after the doubts that infected his brand when Andy Ruiz had the impertinence to temporarily halt his career in 2019 – entitles him to to something. like 60-40. “Less talk, more action,” he repeated. Was it a nod to the negotiating table?
Matchroom doesn’t own Joshua, though Hearn’s involvement has been mutually beneficial beyond anyone’s imagination since the Watford heavyweight turned pro with a London Olympics gold medal as a bargaining chip. The fighter will say that he has delivered; now it’s Eddie’s turn, and he hasn’t let him down yet.
As for the fight, it deserved a stadium audience of 90,000, rather than the thousands allowed with a nod to briefly relaxed restrictions as the virus keeps the country under its control. It was as if everyone had been allowed out for the weekend and they were going to make the most of it.
Joshua was tremendously alive from the first bell; also Pulev, despite his years. They were scheduled to fight in October 2017, but they went different directions, like most of Pulev’s first punches on Saturday night. Joshua quickly established dominance. No one, surely, throws more uppercuts, and many landed on Pulev, who collapsed in the third, but kept going.
It had its moments. His pedigree was solid, if a bit worn. And it got bigger and slower per round. Joshua, eight years younger at 31, mastered his own impetuosity, aware of the dangers of his assignment, then built his hurricane. When Pulev’s legs weakened and his right hand swayed with diminishing threat, Joshua struck his chin repeatedly under his guard.
Pulev, an avid student of architecture, knows how buildings without solid foundations collapse under the trauma of instant pressure. When Joshua’s long, classic right cross slammed into his defenseless jaw for the last time, Pulev was that building.
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