Anthony Joshua finally gets back into the ring on Dec. 12 after a year out to defend his WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight titles against Kubrat Pulev.
Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, Joshua's last fight was his win over Andy Ruiz Jr. in their rematch to regain the belts he lost to the Mexican-American six months prior at Madison Square Garden.
That remains the only blemish on the champ's professional record, and Manny Robles — who guided Ruiz to a fleeting championship glory — has shared with Bulgaria's Pulev what he perceives to be Joshua's biggest weakness.
"The right hand," Robles told Marc Gatford via the MyBettingSites.co.uk blog.
"If you time the right hand properly and jab to the chest, jab to the body and come over with the right hand, that’s where I feel Joshua is vulnerable.
"You saw that in the Povetkin fight who landed the right hand. Most fighters that have been able to hurt Joshua — it’s been the right hand. If you don’t work on keeping that left hand up, or getting away from the right hand, the same thing is going to continue to happen.
"Got to work on that defence. Joshua is a great fighter, a great person but he’s vulnerable too, he’s human. He’s not perfect, he makes mistakes. And we capitalized on those mistakes in June 2019.
"Pulev is not a walk in a park, he’s an experienced fighter. He is definitely the type of fighter that gives Joshua a run for his money. Pulev doesn’t have the quickness Andy has, but if they study him, break him down, and come up with a good game plan he could be effective."
Robles was fired weeks after Ruiz lost the Saudi Arabia rematch by the boxer's father, Andy Ruiz Sr.
And the trainer went into detail on exactly how he helped Ruiz Jr. focus on his profession and get his life back on track before being unceremoniously dumped.
"Andy just came back from a loss, his first loss," said Robles. "They came and talked to me and I took him under my wing. He was going through a lot of ups and downs; he wasn't fighting, he wasn’t making any money and he was pretty much broke.
"He didn’t have a place to stay, so I had to find him a place to live, so I wouldn't lose him. I understood what I was working with, I understood this kid was talented.
"I didn’t want to lose him to the streets or him to quit boxing, so I had to find a way to keep him in LA, to put a roof over his head — and I did just that. I found him a place to stay, food, everything that a fighter would need to stay focused.
"We managed to keep him here and little by little his luck started changing for the better. Things started to fall into place. He got his opportunity to fight Joshua and everyone knows the story.
"It wasn’t luck; he was ready, he was prepared, he was focused, he was hungry. And then the moment he won the world title everything changed."
In interviews since being sacked in January, Robles revealed that he felt doomed to such a fate after Ruiz showed no motivation or desire ahead of the rematch.
It is, after all, often the trainer who gets the brunt in the aftermath of a big defeat.
"I had to put up with a lot, I had to endure a lot, it wasn’t fun," continued Robles. "I did the best I could to get him to focus on the fight and keep him disciplined but unfortunately his mind was somewhere else."
Pulev will hope to become the second man to dethrone Joshua on Dec 12 in a fight set to be shown live on Sky Sports Box Office in the U.K. and on DAZN in the U.S.
Ruiz, meanwhile, now under the guidance of Eddy Reynoso, is likely to return to the ring in early 2021 after recently ruling out fighting before 2020 comes to an end.