BOXING
Joshua vs Wallin Day of Reckoning fight format: rounds, weigh-in, rules...
The riskiest of the fights on a packed card in Riyadh is Anthony Joshua and Otto Wallin. With his career on the line, AJ could have his work cut out for him.
They say that styles make fights. No matter how dangerous an opponent you face, if you have two compatible styles then you can effectively counter any advantage that they might have. A boxer might train for a certain game plan, but when you are punched in the face, you revert to form, becoming the fighter that you naturally are.
Everyone on the fight card this Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia will have to deal with a potential problem in their opponent. Every fighter will have to confront a style that they will either deal with or they won’t.
None, however, are facing such a potential threat as Anthony Joshua does. Otto Wallin is no joke.
Anthony Joshua was for so long the face of heavyweight boxing. He took the sport by storm after winning gold in the 2012 Olympics, blazing his way through stiff opposition like Dillian Whyte, Charles Martin, Dominic Breazeale, and Wladimir Klitschko, knocking out every opponent as a professional until he faced Joseph Parker. Even then, AJ outboxed a seriously good boxer to get the unanimous decision.
Underestimating Andy Ruiz saw Joshua get his first career loss, and although he put that right, the door was open for Oleksandr Usyk to take all of the belts that AJ had won. Two losses to the Ukrainian White Rabbit put AJ on notice and his career entered full rebuild mode.
Out went Rob McCracken, the only trainer that Joshua had ever worked with, and in came Derrick James and now Ben Davison. Out went the straight-ahead, one-two puncher and in came a focus on defense. It saw AJ get a decision win over Jermaine Franklin Jr followed by a handy knockout of Robert Helenius in his last fight.
Otto Wallin is next up for the former champ, and the stakes are high indeed. Wallin gave Tyson Fury a tough time of it, gashing the Gypsy King’s head and taking him the distance. And while the Swede doesn’t pack the natural power of Joshua, he can box, he is tough as old boots, and can easily become a banana skin for AJ to slip on.
As a southpaw, Wallin is clearly meant to provide some kind of exorcism of the port-side hex that Usyk seemed to have placed on Joshua. AJ has very little experience with lefties and the expectation is that Wallin will provide world-class competition from the goofy side, setting up a potential trilogy with Usyk.
It is a strategy that has Carl Froch scratching his head. “If he’s trying to set up for the fight with Deontay Wilder, go for a southpaw?”
Froch points out how Wallin is a potential problem, saying, “One, he’s a southpaw and two, [since] he lost to Tyson Fury in September 2019, he’s on a winning streak of six fights unbeaten. He beat Gassiev in his last fight. This is a guy who’s quality. For me, it’s a bit risky and it’s a fight that could go wrong for him.”
The bout is scheduled to go 12 rounds and will follow the normal Queensberry rules. No three knockdown and the bell cannot save you. For Anthony Joshua and for Otto Wallin, this will be the defining bout of their careers. Well worth the price of admission.