Otto Wallin offered no excuses for his sixth round stoppage loss to Anthony Joshua last Saturday night on December 23rd in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Wallin, 33, feels that Joshua (27-3, 24 KOs) has improved with new coach Ben Davison and is a different fighter now.
The Swedish fighter Wallin (26-2, 14 KOs) admitted that he’d gone up against a better fighter on his best night in their headliner at the Kingdom Arena on the ‘Day of Reckoning’ card.
Wallin didn’t look in great shape for the AJ fight, and it’s believed by some that the five weeks wasn’t enough for him to get in the kind of condition that he needed to give the former two-time heavyweight champion a run for his money.
Wallin’s physique suggested that he’d only just started training camp, and he was not in the type of condition required to fight Joshua or any top ten-level heavyweight for that matter.
No Excuses, Just Respect
“I really have no excuses; he was just better. He hit me with some really good shots. He was just better,” said Otto Wallin to Boxing News, reflecting on his loss to Anthony Joshua last Saturday night.
What hurt Wallin’s chances of winning the fight was his lack of punching power and hand speed. Not being in the greatest shape added to his woes.
Obviously, Joshua’s promoter did an admirable job of selecting Wallin from the many heavyweights in the division, as there were guys that could have given AJ problems, like Zhilei Zhang, Jared Anderson, Martin Bakole, and Agit Kabayel.
Even Joseph Parker would been more problem for Joshua than Wallin did. So for that, you have to commend AJ’s promoter, Eddie Hearn for selecting Wallin out of all the dangerous potential landmines in the heavyweight division that he could have chosen, which have exploded on him, ruining the maneuvering that is being done to get Joshua to the goldmine fight against Tyson Fury.
A Different Beast
“It was a much tougher fight than what I had with Tyson Fury. Maybe he’s found his home with Ben Davison,” said Wallin.
There’s no way of knowing if Joshua has improved under new coach Ben Davison, as Wallin is the type of opponent that AJ would have beaten with his previous trainers, Derrick James, Robert Garcia, or Rob McCracken.
The only way to know if Joshua has gotten better under Davison is for him to fight the best heavyweights, like Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Zhang, Anderson, Parker, Daniel Dubois, and Frank Sanchez. The recently knocked out Joe Joyce would have been a more formidable foe for Joshua than Wallin.
Davison is a good trainer, but when Joshua is fighting this type of opposition, being matched against a slow, old guy with power, you can’t tell whether he’s improved because he would have destroyed him under any of his previous coaches.
Again, you have to credit Hearn for selecting Wallin because he’s being very careful with Joshua, matching him against journeyman-level opposition and making sure that he doesn’t get beaten before he gets to the Fury money fight.
