What excuse does Anthony Joshua have for fighting these cans?

[Crazylegs77]

Beterbiev has less fights and has fought better competition, Hearn needs to get him some guys with a pulse at least.

its a win win, easiest way to a title shot, get paid, and your fans support you as if they dont realize your in with terrible opposition.

[Dr Rumack]

There's no rush. They just shouldn't be putting that shit on tv.

[MPX309]

Don't know why you guys are bringing Wilder in to this. My guess would be Wilder was unknown compared to Joshua who is a Olympic Gold Medallist so people didn't care too much about his cans. However Wilder made a HUGE step up and shut down the WBC Champion of the world.

Joshua could beat the likes of Audley Harrison and Dereck Chisora comfortably. He's basically a giant fightings kids right now.

Why not? Wilder fought him last year, and is now the WBC HW champion.

Joshua fought him for his 11th fight and beat him in less time too.
Not saying it was a good match up, but the facts are facts.

I do have a feeling Hearn will try to protect his investment, but I hope, Joshua and Wilder fight within Joshua's next 9 fights

[KO'er]

Beterbiev has less fights and has fought better competition, Hearn needs to get him some guys with a pulse at least.

Gavern is only a warm up fight, getting ready for Kevin Johnson. Joshua was going to fight Kevin Johnson in January but he got a stress fracture in his back.

The fight with Johnson was thus delayed. He wanted a warm up with Gavern before he got in the ring with Johnson, it would be ****** to fight Johnson after 5 months out, too much inactivity. AJ fought Gavern as a warm up.

If AJ didn't get a stress fracture in his back in the first place, he wouldn't have fought Gavern and would have went straight to Kevin Johnson.

[W1LL]

He is an Olympic gold medallist, and only 25 years old. What excuse does anyone have for rushing his development?

Personally I would've liked to see him go the Southern Area > English > British > European & Commonwealth route. That would have required moving along even slower though.

[babynuts]

he's still a prospect, hasn't fought anyone with a pulse and was coming off a 5 month layoff which is pretty big when you consider how often he usually fights.

So yeah, the fight i understand, televising it and hyping as a decent win is not acceptable but people who tune in and know nothing about boxing will buy into it, so that's why it's televised. Sky and Hearn are not ******.

Kevin Johnson next, he's durable but doesn't throw punches. It's just a way to add a decent name to Joshua's record, it still won't really give us any idea if he can go all the way.

[Enzo Mc is SHIT]

It'll tell us a lot more about his skills and power, although not really anything about his defence and chin. It's a good fight at this stage.

[hayZ]

He was supposed to be fighting Kevin Johnson before but Joshua got injured...he wasn't even sure he was going to fight on this card but he went for it. He ideally wanted to fight in June.

He just wants to stay as active as he can and now I think the Johnson fight is a good fight for him, he's looking at the big names. He'll be in some big fights in a year or so.

[JasonBoxing]

Beterbiev has less fights and has fought better competition, Hearn needs to get him some guys with a pulse at least.

With all due respect to Beterbiev and every single Non-Heavyweight in the history of boxing, they are not anywhere near in the same risk zone as Heavyweights. There have not been ONE ATG HW that have been brought up fast like a Lomachenko type at the lighter weights. Ali,Tyson,Lewis,Holyfield,Holmes,Wladimir,Vitali, the list goes on and on. Not one of them was ever brought up fast. And every single 'elite level' HW that was brought up fast ended up crashing out. (Ala Biggs). At the HW Division the risk of one punch is just so much higher than the non-Heavyweights that it's incomparable. For instance, Lomachenko was actually hit with some punches against Salido that if it was say a debuting Tyson against a HW Version of Salido? Debut Tyson would have been knocked out. It's just a different division. You just CAN'T bring up Heavyweights fast. That's the bottom line. I'm not saying do a Wilder, but the route Joshua is taking is similar to Wladimir's.

Lewis first fought his danger guy at fight 15(Gary Mason 35-0 34 KO). I think Wlad first fought his danger guy after 20 fights or so. Before that, they were all feasting on the same level of fighters Joshua is currently feasting on.

[JasonBoxing]

This is why it bothers me when people try to compare Heavyweights with the ligher weights in a lot of things: Skillset,resume,etc etc.............The Heavyweight Division is so alien and different from the rest of the weight classes, it might as well be a different sport.