Lennox Lewis claims there is still “a long road ahead” for Anthony Joshua despite looking good in his victory over Otto Wallin.
Joshua topped the superb Day of Reckoning card in Saudi Arabia on December 23 and ended the show with a bang. His dominance over the Swedish southpaw led to Wallin’s corner pulling himself out of the fight between rounds ahead of the start of the sixth.
Up to that point he had already inflicted plenty of damage on the man who took Tyson Fury 12 rounds back in 2019 and was himself coming off the back of a solid win against Murat Gassiev.
It concluded a solid year for Joshua who has also beaten Jermaine Franklin and Robert Helenius in the last 12 months, but the Wallin rounds showed him at his best.
On the TNT Sports boradcazt, former undisputed champion Lewis – who has had some choice words for Joshua in the past – gave a mixed review.
“I couldn’t really judge from this fight if he is back or not. He definitely looked good, he did what he was supposed to do, he took a guy out like he has taken out in fights before. The guy had no definition in his body, I don’t know if he worked hard in the gym and I don’t know if he threw any punches that landed cause AJ looked like a movie start after the fight like he hadn’t even been in a fight.”
He then sounded a note of caution saying there is still lots for ‘AJ’ to do to be considered the best, including suggesting he needs to fight Zhilei Zhang and Tyson Fury.
“But there is still a long road ahead and he’s still got to go up against Fury if that fight is made, I think that will be a great fight for him. And Zhang from China will be a great fight as well so there is a couple of guys still wandering around but for this particular fight he did well.”
Joshua had signed before the fight to take on Deontay Wilder in March, although the latter’s loss to Joseph Parker likely takes that fight off the table.