By Shaun Murphy-
Anthony Joshua’s friend has attempted to soften the blow for the Londoner’s defeat on Saturday by claiming that Sky ran a biased documentary against him during the fight.
Jarman (pictured)agreed Usyk’s victory was legitimate, but argued that it was so close that his friend Joshua would also have been justified if the decision had swung in his favour. He argued that a low blow by Joshua to Usyk was actually not illegal, but appeared to be , especially given Usyk’s protest made in agony. According to him, had the referee judged the low blow to have been legal, Joshua could have one that round.
His argument, though true, still misses the point that Joshua was expected to secure the win decisively by showing more hunger and throwing more aggressive punches against Usyk on the front foot in the earlier rounds. Joshua, who put up a more improved performance in this contest lost the fight with less damage to his reputation than in his first fight. The problem is the fact he still lost against a man who is quite beatable by a very good world champion.
Joshua has been mocked by Tyson Fury who said the Londoner and Usyk were both sxxx, insisting that he would have beaten both on the same night. Fury plans to have a unified fight with Usyk to capture all the belts, but has asked for £500m to bring him out of retirement. Those kind of figures are crazy, and can be hit if a fight of that magnitude is staged in Saudi Arabia again. Fury is asking for too much, but he could get it.
Former Wbc champion Deontey Wilder has also given his verdict of the fight, and suggested that Joshua’s failure to force a victory was down to stamina problems he has, which the Alabama puncher also believes Usyk suffers from.
Joshua who had been told multiple times in the build up to the fight to change his mindset and be aggressive, was again tentative in the opening few rounds, picking his shots mechanically, but quite effectively on many occasions. He did not show the will to try and finish the fight before the middle rounds or even weaken Usyk tremendously and show he was ready for war, in the manner, like he had been talking in the build up to the fight.
However, his friend feels Sky had ulterior motives in giving him an unfair commentary, just because he left them to sign a contract with DAZN
Jarman argues on technical issues not far from the truth, but make no difference to the fact he should have won.
He said: “Until the tenth round, I had AJ up five conclusively, Usyk up one conclusively, and the other four were the flip of a coin.
“Because Usyk is the champion, he gets those rounds. There is a thing in boxing called champion’s bias.
“So Joshua was up 5-4. I didn’t need to watch the final three rounds, because Usyk won those conclusively. So arguably, 115-113 was the correct score.“
However, if AJ had the belts, that fight could’ve easily gone the other way.
“And there has been no narrative around this – but the low blow shot in round five…
“Usyk was given 25 seconds to recover – and it was not low. It was flush on the belt. If you watch it in slow motion and see where the knuckles land, it was a clean shot.
“What should happen – either the ref allows AJ to tee off on him, or he asks Usyk if he’s OK to box. Then bang, standing eight count.
Jarman argues that low blow was unfairly ruled against Joshua Image;quicktelcast.com
Jarman makes a fair point that if Anthony Joshua were champion, he may have been a beneficiary of champion bias, and been given the benefit of the doubt, gut Joshua came to this fight as a challenger who had already lost his belts.
The addition of Robert Garcia to his team led many commentators to expect a more explosive Joshua from the early rounds, , at least from the fourth round. Instead, the first six rounds were very close, as Joshua struggled to comfortably dominate his unbeaten opponent.
His emotional outburst after the fight that saw him dump Usyk’s belts with disregard showed how much the belts meant to him, but also exposed a lack of sportsmanship at that level, because of a bruised ego caused by the defeat.
Losing to Usyk in a decent fight was no disgrace to Joshua, but he learnt for sure that he is not yet ready to compete Tyson Fury, and will need to discover a bit more hunger during big championship fights like these.
His plans to return to the ring later this year is a positive sign of hunger, fighting once a year was never a good idea.
Shaun Murphy is a former writer for eastsideboxing