The shadow of a potential fight against Tyson Fury for the undisputed heavyweight title looms large over this weekend’s WBA, IBF and WBO title showdown between Britain’s Anthony Joshua and Bulgaria’s Kubrat Pulev at Wembley Arena.
After an eventful 2019, in which he was sensationally stopped by Andy Ruiz Jr in June prior to exacting revenge via a landslide albeit safety-first points victory in December, Joshua will have been out of action for a year and five days when he enters the ring on Saturday night, in front of a live crowd restricted to 1,000 spectators due to the ongoing pandemic.
Promoter Eddie Hearn has claimed that he is “as close to 100%” confident as he can be that “the Fury fight will happen if AJ wins on Saturday,” and – as a consequence – has admitted that the prospect of Joshua falling prey to an upset loss has made him nervy.
“I feel like this is one of the most important fights I’ve ever been involved with,” Hearn told Boxing Social this week. “We know what’s coming at the end of it and we’ve just got to win on Saturday.”
Hearn is adamant that the carrot of a mega showdown with lineal and WBC champion Fury will ensure that, although nervousness abounds, there is no complacency within the Joshua camp.
“Everyone’s nervous in the camp. AJ included,” he said. “I think he feels the pressure which is great news by the way for him. No one really knows what to expect. You can’t say [Pulev] is an unknown quantity because he’s been around for a long time and he’s been a solid heavyweight top ten guy for years and year and years. He’s good. We know we’ve got a real fight. [Pulev] isn’t a guy that’s been handpicked out of the top 20. [But] AJ is so focused on just this fight.”
Despite Pulev’s credentials – which include an excellent amateur career of more than 250 bouts, including European gold and world championship bronze – Joshua (23-1, 21 KOs) certainly enters the fight with all the physical advantages. The Briton is the younger man by eight years, and enjoys superiorities of height (6’6” to 6’1/2”) and reach (82” to 79½), as well as carrying far more dynamite in his fists than Pulev (21 KOs from 24 fights, as opposed to Pulev’s 14 from 29 in his record of 28-1).
Perhaps the biggest question mark that hangs over Joshua concerns what approach he will take into the ring. Will this be the cautious, conservative AJ who boxed his way to points victories against Joseph Parker and Andy Ruiz Jr in their rematch, or the more gung-ho version of the fighter who went to war with Dillian Whyte and Wladimir Klitschko and came unstuck against Ruiz the first time around?
In the build-up to the fight Joshua has sounded both focused and determined, and displayed the sort of ‘growth mindset’ that makes him such an admirable athlete.
“After my loss in New York?” he pondered in conversation with Sky Sports. “What people call weaknesses, I call strengths that I haven’t identified yet.
“I saw the strengths I hadn’t identified – what [others] call weaknesses. I enhanced them, improved them. Now there aren’t any chinks in my armour. I’ve worked a lot on honing my craft. This will be a tough fight but I need to retain my belts. I have a warrior mindset. In my mind, nothing else is important apart from Pulev. That is my focus.”
Hearn – for one – is expecting the more devastating and attacking version of Joshua to make an appearance on Saturday, having stated: “If AJ is going to become the undisputed world champion he should be beating [Pulev] and he should be breaking him down and beating him up. I hope you will get a master class knockout performance from Anthony Joshua and I believe you will.”
Perhaps. However, defeat does strange things to a man and one wonders if the Joshua who believed in his own invincibility and entered the Ruiz clash at Madison Square Garden convinced he could walk down and knock out any man alive may have gone for good.
If there are any residual doubts or demons lingering in Joshua’s psyche then Pulev is arguably well placed to take advantage of them. A fighter to his core, the Sofia-born ‘Cobra’ is a folk hero back home in Bulgaria and was introduced to boxing by his later father – a former national champion – while he was still in nappies.
Named after Kubrat Khan, a famous and fierce Bulgarian leader who unified his people in the first century, Pulev has long talked about how he believes it is his destiny to assume the mantle of world heavyweight champion.
“Many times I’ve wondered if the name Kubrat which my dad gave me has given me some sort of special destiny,” he once observed. “Is the spirit of greatness in my blood?”
Pulev has consistently proven himself a world level operator since turning pro in 2009, with wins against European level and fringe world-class operators liberally sprinkled across his CV. But he lacks a defining victory, with his best wins on paper remaining his victories against Alexander Dimitrenko, Alexander Ustinov, Derek Chisora and Hughie Fury.
On his one excursion into true world-class, Pulev was comprehensively dismantled in 2014 by Wladimir Klitschko in five brutal and one-sided rounds, being knocked down four times in total before being counted out.
Since that painful night in Hamburg just over six years ago, Pulev has fought just six times – a worrying statistic – and has also seen his conduct out of the ring garner unwanted tabloid and media attention: firstly when he controversially planted a post-fight kiss on the lips of reporter Jennifer Ravalo, and then when he split with long-term partner, the Bulgarian pop singer Andrea, amid accusations of cheating.
This, then, would seem to be Pulev’s final chance to become world champion. Perhaps sensing that the clock is ticking on his career he is certainly talking a good fight. “A boxer must have power and speed and right now I feel very dangerous,” he said soon after entering the fight week ‘bubble’.
“It will not be an easy fight but we will win it. He is a very good fighter, that I respect, but I will show I am the better boxer. Two good fighters means it is a dangerous fight, and I like that.
“For me this is much more important than becoming a champion for the money. This means everything if I achieve it. I don’t think it is my last chance but it is an important moment. The one time I lost [to Klitschko] I was too young, too green.
“Before Klitschko I was relaxed but there were many problems. My promoters were talking about tickets and money. They were mistakes because I was not only thinking about training and the strategy for the fight.”
Pulev has also shrugged off accusations that – at 39 – he may lack stamina in a long, hard fight.
“I can do 12 rounds,” he insisted. “I could do 20 rounds. I have trained in our mountains that are 2,300m above sea level.”
Given Joshua’s proven frailties when under consistent fire, one cannot entirely discount the prospect of a Pulev victory, but in truth the Bulgarian is unlikely to prevail. His hands are not fast enough to befuddle Joshua in the way that Ruiz did at times, and his single-shot firepower does not seem sufficient to deter AJ or force him into an overly negative shell.
Furthermore, although Pulev possesses sound fundamentals, his inferior length means that I cannot see him taking the centre ring and out-jabbing or outworking Joshua.
I can see Joshua adopting a disciplined, cautious style at the outset as he assesses what resistance Pulev has to offer, before stepping up the pace around the midway point of the fight and forcing a stoppage sometime in round seven or eight.
Main image: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing.