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BOXING ROUND UP - 10/04/2023 (Patreon)

Published:
2023-04-10 22:23:20
Imported:
2023-11

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Anonymous

I'm not sure if Derrick James is the right trainer for Joshua. Although they haven't worked together for very long, Joshua's last fight didn't look promising. On April 1st, we saw Joshua regress, and it was the worst version of him since early 2015. While he didn't gas out, which was impressive given his career-high weight, his output was low and the pace of the fight was slow. Although James could help Joshua improve in some areas, I still believe Joshua would have had a better performance under Robert Garcia, who made him more aggressive and allowed him to win several rounds in his second fight against Usyk. Garcia wasn't even the head coach, and he didn't have the luxury of fighting a beaten and low-skilled opponent like Jermaine Franklin, as James did. James' corner work didn't offer much in the way of tactics, with too much shadowboxing and not enough strategic advice. While James may be able to help Joshua in certain areas, he has his hands full with Joshua's stablemates, and it may not be enough to bring Joshua back to his best form.

thebrotherhoodofreason
>>106083613

Robert Garcia fighters, typically, aren't very defensive minded. They're often willing to take shots in order to land their own. While that may have been what was required for AJ to maximise his chances against a relatively light puncher in Usyk, you certainly wouldn't advise that strategy against Wilder, Joyce, Whyte, or any of the bigger punchers in the division. Hence, for the long term, I'm not sure whether Garcia is the best choice. Derrick James’ fighters are, typically, ‘assertive’ rather than aggressive. They tend to have a methodical approach and do everything behind a solid defence. This style offers more psychological comfort to a fighter like AJ who doesn’t have confidence in his own punch resistance. James seems to understand AJ as a person better than Garcia, hence them appearing to be much closer. It’s very important for the personalities of fighter and trainer to gel. It doesn’t matter how knowledgeable a trainer is, if the fighter doesn’t feel comfortable with his personality and methods of communication, it’s not going to work. From what I’ve heard, James stripped AJ’s technique right back to the basics in camp, because he apparently felt that AJ had a ton of bad habits. They only had 10 weeks to work together; as such, James said the strategy he devised was very simple. He wanted AJ to stick to the basics, and do them correctly. He he didn’t want to overcomplicate things. And ditto for his corner work; he didn’t want to overload AJ with information, so he kept his instructions simple, in order to minimise mistakes and negate falling back into his old bad habits. After the fight, James said he was happy, because AJ did everything he asked him to do. He said if people weren’t happy with AJ’s performance, they should blame him (James) because AJ was just boxing to instructions. The inferred objective, other than getting the win, was for AJ to sync with James’ way of doing things (not to ‘look good’ necessarily), and an opponent like Franklin is ‘safe’ enough to do that with. Lennox Lewis’ first fight under Manny Steward was against Lionel Butler, and he did not look good. He had far more impressive performances under previous trainers John Davenport and Pepe Correa. Lewis didn’t look entirely convincing under Steward until his win over Andrew Golota, six fights later. Similar situation with Wladimir Klitschko, his first fight with Manny Steward was against Lamon Brewster, and he got knocked out! He also got dropped in two of his next three subsequent fights, with Steward in the corner. But they stayed together, and eventually gelled. Another one would be Amir Khan when he first hooked up with Virgil Hunter. He looked poor their first two fights together (Molina and Diaz), but everything clicked in their third fight, versus Luis Collazo (one of his career best performances). It usually does take time -at least 2 or 3 fights- for fighter and trainer to gel. There often is a teething stage, where the fighter can look ‘worse’ in the short term, but ends up looking better in the long run, as per the examples given.

Anonymous
>>106083613

I'd argue if Joshua fought the same fight he did in the rematch with Usyk against Franklin (high-guard, high-pressure, relatively high output and ok-ish movement), it could've been an early night's job. I think people don't give Robert Garcia enough credit, if Joshua selected James in lieu of McCracken for the Usyk fight, do you think James' Joshua would've won or even performed better? I don't. His choice of coach was insignificant for the Usyk fights. Joshua came in a career-high heaviest (obviously something James isn't concerned about) and mass has always been a complication for him. He looked very slow in the feet and stiff upstairs. There wasn't the bounce in his legs as we've seen in the past, just stiff, upright and moving backwards in linear lines. A lot of his inside game was sloppy, other than holding Franklin's head (illegally) and throwing uppercuts. He wasted a lot of energy throwing valueless punches to the body without any venom. Sure, it can give a good look to the judges for winning rounds, but he's a heavyweight, not a welterweight in Spence or Charlo. Joshua is the right package at the wrong address, in my opinion. I don't think how a fighter and coach gel on a personal level is all that important. Joshua can look more comfortable, be happier and put more trust into James but it doesn't necessarily mean he'll become a better fighter. It probably won't ever happen, but Sugar Hill would've been a way better option than both Garcia and James. Reynoso could've done a good job too. Joshua substituting coaches frequently isn't helping either, they do say, comparison is the thief of joy, well in Joshua's situation, it's the thief of improvement. You make a good point psychologically. The way he fought Franklin was a deer in the headlights performance, safety-first, not willing to trade shots and win (James' objective). It did give Joshua comfort and that's exactly why it'll backfire on him if he levels up the competition. Whyte, as concluded as he is, may be able to rough Joshua up and put a spanner in the works if they fight again. He knows what to expect this time, a terror-stricken Joshua looking for single big shots, or at best a one, two. I won't write James off yet because we haven't seen enough. Let's see how the wind blows.

Anonymous

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