Absolute piss!

Bloke wasn’t winning anything. Both eyes cut, ref was looking for an excuse. No reason for it to go on any longer. Pretty boring anyway.

Yeah.. I mean he was going to win.. But stopping him in the tenth was totally bull

I’ve certainly seen worse stoppages than that!

Glad I didn’t pay for it, what a crap bill.

Dude deserved to see the end of the fight.. Nails..

Aj doesn’t look that good to be fair.. Best for a while, but not massively better than Bruno Imo.

I’m still unconvinced he has much more than a phenomenal punch. Almost thinking fury would have good shout against him if he is on his game.. Never thought I’d say that.

We had a cheeky stream. I think Joshua is a quality fella and I genuinely hope he unifies the whole division back say at wembewerlwy.
Without Eddie Hearn!

Aj doesn’t look that good to be fair..

He sometimes does look disappointingly Bruno-like – I think he’s one of those that rises to the level of his competition though. Looked like he was going through the motions with this fight. Massive crowd, ppv and a sub opponent… “better not knock him out in 30secs”! Plodded on with it. Give him a live opponent and we’ll see something better. Hopefully.

Yeah.. The whole thing appeared a bit low key.. Almost fell asleep at the walk on music

I like him.. He likes a ruck which is refreshing but he just doesn’t have much in the way of variety.. Little head movement either.

Refreshing to see a boxer that isn’t a total nob head either though.. Would love to see him unify.. But once he does not seeing much competition out there for him.

Be interesting if there is to be a re match!! All bellew keep going on about having to re adjust for different height opponent, the guy have 12 days notice!!! I don’t think he had time to do much other than get his kit ready for the fight.

Bellew is such a dick.. Would love to see him get knocked out against haye if it wasn’t for the certainty that Eddie would then line haye up with aj faster than you could ‘massive British grudge match’ with them suddenly hating each otherdue to some previously undisclosed beef..

I think Joshua had it covered all the way. Yes, I think the stoppage was a bit soft, but it looked like the guy’s arms had gone and couldn’t offer any defence. It certainly didn’t change the result in any way.

I really hope Joshua brings some legitimacy back to heavy weight boxing: He seems like a decent guy, and is a proper athlete and boxer.

Just had a royal bollocking from Mrs ws after talking to my boxing mate in oz via What’s app.
Does the cps view it better talk8nh of the patio Before building it?

Joshua is clearly limited, I wouldn’t say as badly as Bruno as some say … but he has been fortunate that he has had big advantages over his opponents thus far.
Luckily for him there isn’t many good heavyweights out there … and the best one from the USA won’t be in a rush to come over to the UK with referees like last nights.

It’s quite sad that the UK used to have a reputation for fair refereeing – now it’s regarded as one of the worse.

I had money on AJ to win on points so I was disappointed with the stoppage. Why dont refs do a standing 8 count?

ctk – Member

I had money on AJ to win on points so I was disappointed with the stoppage. Why dont refs do a standing 8 count?

Fighter safety. The US boxing commision did away with them in 1998. I assume the bbbofc did the same. There is far greater understanding of the damage and the dangers fighters face now, particularly from CTE, and boxing is basically the sport of giving/evading CTE. A standing 8 count is only necessary if the fighter is already concussed. If he’s already concussed then how much more damage do you want him to take for the sake of entertainment?

It’s the ref’s job to protect the fighters, not worry about the fans or the entertainment factor. A knockout is spectacular but it’s brain damage. Would you want to stand there semi conscious while Anthony Joshua tees off on your head?

Stop the fight before it starts then. The odds on this fight were such that AJ was bound to win, why bother fighting?

So that you could lose money on a bet.

ctk – Member

Stop the fight before it starts then. The odds on this fight were such that AJ was bound to win, why bother fighting?

It’s a dangerous sport, like a lot of other dangerous sports. That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be checks in place to mitigate the potential for death and life changing injuries.

Clearly they were well enough matched that they could have an athletic competition.

Stop the fight before it starts then. The odds on this fight were such that AJ was bound to win, why bother fighting?

It’s a point – but 50,000 (guess) odd ticket sales, Sky PPV… pretty obvious why they would still put a fight on when the original opponent drops out…

The referee is there to protect the boxers if they are not in a position to defend themselves, or glassy eyed and clearly out on their feet; Takam was clearly able, and demonstrating, he could protect himself last night … he shipped a few- he missed a few.