Tyson Fury believes former champion Anthony Joshua is making a big mistake in slimming down from his usual muscular form.
Joshua suffered his first career defeat back in June when he was dropped four times and stopped in the seventh round by Andy Ruiz at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
There were many critics who felt Joshua had too much muscle on his frame, which prevented him from moving away from Ruiz’s incoming charge and rapid combinations.
Joshua has a rematch scheduled with Ruiz, for the WBO, WBA, IBF, IBO world titles, on December 7th in Saudi Arabia.
The theory is, Joshua is losing weight in order to make himself lighter to use a lot more movement in the rematch.
Joshua turned pro at 230-pounds, he’s been as low as 229 and as high as 254. For Ruiz, he was a jacked 247.
In recent photos, quite a few people – including Fury – have taken notice of Joshua’s slimmed-down form.
Fury believes Joshua should forget about slimming down for the movement, and instead focus on his positives and fixing the gaps in his defense.
“I see he’s lost a bit of weight, he’s been taking notice of people saying he’s got too muscle on him,” Fury told BT Sport.
“You can’t change a bull into a racehorse. It doesn’t work like that. A racehorse can’t tow a wagon or a heavy load. Doesn’t work. So if you take that big heavy horse, strip his muscle off, and then put him in the same cart he was in trying to pull that heavy load again he’s not going to manage it.
“So I think they are going to try to lose weight and try to move a lot. But you can’t do that in one camp, that takes a lifetime practice. We saw Tony Bellew try to do it against [Oleksandr] Usyk, tried copying my style but after eight rounds his legs went. It works, it’s effective, I’ve been successful 29 times in a row with it. You can’t learn it overnight.
“What tends to happen with new things in new camps is when someone practises something in the gym for eight, 10, 12 weeks, and then they go in a fight and try to do it, as soon as they get clipped or get tired, they revert straight back to what they once knew. I’ve soon it many, many times. As soon as he holds his feet and starts to fight back, he loses in my opinion.
“But if he can get on the jab and box and move, which I’ve never ever seen him do, amateur or pro, for 12 rounds which for a heavyweight is a very hard thing to do, at some point he’s going to have to stand and fight. And if he keeps running away from Ruiz with the jab, he’s not got the footwork to do that. Work on what you’re good at, that’s what you’re good at. Tighten your defence up and go forward and smash them.”
