WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight world champion Anthony Joshua is very good, but is he great?

For those living in the dark, or just not week-to-week boxing fans, Joshua stopped Alexander Povetkin by way of a seventh-round technical knockout from Wembley Stadium. Joshua had a performance fairly similar to most of his at the highest level, starting slow, but taking over the fight via his power and his ability to stick to a gameplan.

That begs the question are any of the three heavyweights currently, top ten pound-for-pound fighters? I know that is a fictitious list and all, but each and every one of the elite heavyweights, Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury are flawed in one capacity, none of them are the perfect fighter. Joshua at times is too robotic and looks as though he is doing things he is taught rather than an innate response, Wilder is wild and unorthodox and Fury has the most skill of the three, but it is yet to be seen if he can keep the two big punchers of the division off of him, as well as his outside of the ring issue in terms of staying in shape.

Joshua, to me, is the most underwhelming, despite a great resume, and probably the most evenly distributed in terms of his skillset, nothing he does until he fights one of the elite fighters seems to grab my attention. When deeply thinking about it, Joshua has not separated himself in his step-up bouts against Wladimir Klitschko, Joseph Parker and Alexander Povetkin, despite winning them and two of them by knockout.

What I mean in terms of separation is simply showing he is at another level than these fighters as each one of these fights were incredibly competitive when his power changed the course of the fight. In my opinion, his toughest bout was against Parker, a man who took him the distance and despite wide scorecards, I had the bout nearly a draw.

At Joshua’s worst he is robotic and labored in the ring, at his best, he is the most skillful, power puncher in the division, but it is hard to assess him accurately where he is at until he faces the top-tier of fighters.

So until 2019, the year we hope to get Joshua versus the Deontay Wilder vs. Tyson Fury winner, but until then it is just a subjective opinion, of you either believe he is really good or great.