As fans know, promoter Bob Arum is absolutely insistent his fighter Kubrat Pulev will not only defeat Anthony Joshua when he faces him in a long-awaited IBF mandatory title challenge but that the Bulgarian will do so by KO. Now, with the fight in doubt – along with so many other fights due to the ongoing coronavirus that has so messed up the entire boxing schedule – it remains to be seen if Pulev will actually get his chance.
There is, Eddie Hearn has said, a real chance Joshua, if the fight with Pulev (still set, for now, for June 20) fails to happen, could move on and fight Tyson Fury next instead, in December. Time alone will tell. But Arum backs up his argument that his guy Pulev will take out Joshua when/if he fights him by stating how his former guy, Andy Ruiz (who Arum promoted for quite some time) is not as a good a fighter as Pulev is. What’s more, Arum told IFL TV, if Ruiz can KO Joshua, Pulev certainly can do the same.
“He has no chin,” Arum said of Joshua. “I knew Andy Ruiz prior to his first fight with Joshua. Every one of Ruiz’s fights except the one previous to that (Ruiz-Alexander Dimitrenko) was promoted by us. So we are experts on Andy Ruiz. We know how good he is, we know he has fast hands, a pretty good chin, but he’s not a knockout guy. Trust me, look at his record. He fought a lot of ham ‘n’ eggers and he couldn’t knock them out. The fact that he knocked Joshua out the way he did indicates to me that Joshua’s chin is very, very suspect. If you compare Ruiz with Pulev, Pulev is a much better fighter than Andy Ruiz. Therefore, what I’ve said is if Ruiz can knock Joshua out, then Pulev has an even better chance to knock him out.”
Fans still ask whether or not Joshua has completely recovered from the KO loss he suffered at the hands of Ruiz last June, whether he ever can do so. A fight with Pulev might give us our answer. But again, will the fight happen – either on June 20 or at a later date? I don’t know about you, but I want to see if Arum, who comes across as so utterly sure, is in fact right on this one.
I think Joshua wins a pretty wide decision over Pulev, in a pretty dull fight. But who knows for sure? Right now, it’s a pointless task predicting any fight. So up in the air is everything boxing-related during these tough times.
