Via Charles Brun: Jermaine Franklin was not entirely impressed with the career moves and some of the performances of former two-division world champion Anthony Joshua.
Franklin (21-1, 14 KOs), who will face Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) on April 1 at the O2 Arena in London on DAZN, finds it strange that AJ isn’t fighting Deontay Wilder or Tyson Fury , though those are two games that clearly should have happened at this point in his 10-year professional career.
The talented 29-year-old Franklin believes it’s an example of the 33-year-old Joshua being “business savvy” by choosing NOT to fight the powerful Deontay and the goliath-like Fury.
Look at it this way. If Joshua fights both of those guys, he will most likely lose the knockout, which would be a disaster for his future earning ability.
Just as an oil well begins to dry up, promoter Eddie Hearn will need to get Joshua into secondary production, giving him less resistance to opposition; on the other hand, raw [i.e., revenue] soon disappears, and he is forced to abandon the well.
Franklin is an enterprising man, so it’s hard for him to understand Joshua not fighting Fury or Wilder because those are fights he would have fought a long time ago if he were in AJ’s shoes.
Franklin suggested AJ ducking
“I won’t say that they dodged Wilder, but it’s a bit weird when that Wilder situation was playing out, and then he didn’t fight Fury,” Jermaine Franklin told DAZN . boxing programdiscusses some of Anthony Joshua’s career.
“Boxing understands more about business than many people think; there’s more to it than just ‘We’ll fight.’ AJ does have a tough resume, but before that there were some dubious inconsistencies.”
Joshua clearly doesn’t want to get into a fight with former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder. According to Deontay, Joshua was offered $50 million and he still hasn’t entered the fight, and that was many years ago.
AJ may have picked Wilder 6’7″ for April but went in the direction of Franklin, who was less than half a puncher and much lower at 6’2″. Franklin is about the same size as Andy Ruiz Jr, with similar hand speed, but not as strong as him.
Was it a smart move for Joshua not to fight Wilder? It’s probably because even though Joshua will make a ton of money in that bout, it could be a disaster for him if he gets eliminated.
A knockout loss to Deontay will greatly affect Joshua’s earning potential from that point on, and who knows what effect that will have on his ability to absorb hits.
True, some felt that Joshua’s chin never recovered after Wladimir Klitschko severely injured him in their fight in 2017. Speaking of Klitschko, Franklin felt that Joshua would lose to him. if Wladimir is a younger version of himself.
By the time they fought, Wladimir was 40 years old and was about to be fired for a year. This is not a younger version of Klitschko, who has dominated the weight class for ten years.
By the time Joshua came to Wladimir, he was old and past that age, and his coach Emanuel Stewart had passed away, leaving him to Johnathon Bank as his coach.
“The Klitschko War, you beat an older Klitschko. Against a younger Klitschko, I don’t think that fight will play out,” Franklin said.
Joshua needs a good confidence boost
“Franklin is smaller than Joshua, and he’s not the biggest boxer in the world. Stylistically, it’s a good match for AJ,” Tony Bellew told DAZN. “He needs to start making games in his favor, and this is a stack in his favor.
“Yes, he was melee with Dillian Whyte. I don’t think he beat Dillian Whyte, but he pushed him very close, so we’ll see how it goes. He’s not the strongest puncher, so that’s a real failure. We need to see where AJ is,” Bellew said.
Ade Oladipo said: “The UK public now knows Jermaine Franklin from the Dillian Whyte fight, so it would be easier to sell that way. “I attended the Dillian Whyte – Jermaine Franklin match, and he surprised me with his hand speed. He surprised me as a smaller heavyweight in the land of giants.
“Good hand speed, good and solid stab. I think AJ needs a good boost of confidence and I think Jermaine Franklin can provide that and let’s see in the late summer of 2023.”
