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Anthony Joshua must learn lessons from heavyweight history

Steve Bunce

Anthony Joshua was knocked over four times, finished the fight on his feet and was thrown to the lions the moment his reign as heavyweight world champion was over.

It has happened before in the History of the Heavyweight Championship.

Joshua entered the ring unbeaten, untouchable, adored by millions. By the time the fight was stopped, a darkening toxic cloud of historical amnesia was settling over his career; he was accused of quitting and being a fraud, among an array of other ridiculous claims.

The fallen idol of British boxing is not the first heavyweight world champion and outstanding favourite to lose, to have his title snatched away in the most brutal and shocking of fashions.

Andy Ruiz Jr is not the first no-hoper to pull off a shock.

The history of the heavyweight division is packed with stories of men like Ruiz Jr taking their chance and letting their fists fly. Some win, like Ruiz and George Foreman did in 1973, and some come very close to upsetting the heavyweight champion in memorable scraps.

Big Joshua will not be the last heartbroken heavyweight hero to enter as champion and leave as loser – there is every chance he will not be the last this year.

He will certainly not be the last to be called a pretender after losing for the first time. Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson and Floyd Patterson were all ridiculed when they lost their perfect records. It is a vicious place, the heavyweight championship.

In the History of the Heavyweight Championship the underdogs, the men selected to lose, ruin the script on a regular basis and destroy the suggestion of invincibility surrounding a fighter.

Men like Joshua, big men with a lot of knockout wins, tumble hardest in defeat.

Ali defied monsters twice. He did it in the 60s and 70s in two fights where there was a genuine concern for his health and fears that there would be a death in the ring.

Ruiz Jr had far more chance of beating Joshua in the Madison Square Garden ring than Ali, then known as Cassius Clay, had of beating Sonny Liston in 1964 and George Foreman in 1974.

It is easy to forget the facts. That’s why, in our podcast series, I have used so many writers from the era when the fights took place to illuminate the truth. It can be shocking to hear just what people believed.

In New York, in the five days before the first bell, there was no support for Ruiz Jr. Nobody was backing him.

But by the end of the week, most experts on the ground were starting to believe he would pose Joshua some questions. A few “what ifs” had crept in, the same type of “what ifs” that emerged before the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974. What if Ruiz Jr does not fold and then fires back?

Before Foreman lost to Ali in the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, there were people wondering what would happen if ‘The Beast’, who was Foreman, was unable to hurt Ali, who would soon become ‘The Greatest’. We found out in New York and we found out in Zaire.

Ruiz Jr was also dismissed as some type of bum, a fighter without any real qualifications for securing the fight. Some people forgot that he was a late, late replacement.

The brutal truth is that Ruiz Jr was better than some of the men that fought for the world heavyweight championship in the 60s and 70s. Take a listen to the build-up for the championship fight between Terry Daniels and Joe Frazier in 1972. It is quite ridiculous.

In 1961, Floyd Patterson met a man called Tom McNeeley and that was a comical mismatch in some ways. And it is hard to forget Richard Dunn in Munich in 1976 against Ali. Trust me, Ruiz Jr would have beaten all three of those challengers.

What happened in New York was rare, but not unique. It is all about Joshua coming back now or Joshua vanishing. Ruiz Jr will never be confused with ‘The Greatest’, but he will never be forgotten for the shock he pulled off in the magical Garden ring and he fully deserves his place in the History of the Heavyweight Championship.

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