By Daily Sports Nigeria on August 25, 2023

Shakur Stevenson predicts a knockout victory for former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder over Anthony Joshua when or if they fight early next year.

Stevenson feels that the former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (26-3, 23 KOs) looks “lost” right now, desperately changing trainers repeatedly, looking at these guys as magic genie who can save his sinking career.

Joshua has seemed mentally shot since his knockout loss to Andy Ruiz Jr in 2019 and seems afraid to return to the aggressive style that brought him success earlier in his career.

The safety-first Wladimir Klitschko style of fighting that Joshua has adopted since his rematch with Ruiz in December 2019 makes him more vulnerable to losing because he moves around, throwing view punches, and gives his opponents more of a chance of beating him.

None of them have helped Joshua, and he looks just as vulnerable as he did with his original trainer Rob McCracken. AJ looks worse now than he did with McCracken, as we witnessed in his last two performances against Robert Helenius and Jermaine Franklin. Derrick James is currently training Joshua out of Dallas, Texas, and doesn’t seem like a good pairing.

Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is keen on matching him against Wilder and then Tyson Fury in what some boxing fans view as a cash-out before Joshua heads into retirement to live comfortably with his massive fortune, which could be well over $300m by that point.

“Wilder (will win) by knockout. I like Joshua, but he seems lost right now, changing trainers. He seems like he’s looking for somebody to help his career, and I feel like he probably should be the one helping his own career,” Stevenson told 2ndWindPod, predicting a knockout win for Deontay Wilder over the faded, “lost” Anthony Joshua.

“Yeah, Wilder, he punches so hard. Imagine street fighting him. Wilder is a beast, man,” Stevenson added.

It’s believed that Joshua’s recent fight with Helenius on August 12 was a dry run on how he will fight Wilder next year. Joshua used a lot of movement and threw only single punches in that fight with the 39-year-old Helenius.

Interestingly, afterward, Hearn talked of Joshua fighting someone else next instead of Wilder, saying that if the negotiations weren’t done within three weeks, they might fight someone else. This comment by Hearn was construed as a sign of him getting cold feet, realizing that Joshua is in no way mentally ready to step inside the ring with Wilder and get his lights punched out.

Source Punch Ng

Posted August 25, 2023

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