In one of the biggest fights in British boxing, Anthony Joshua overcame a heavy knockdown to stop the legendary Wladimer Klitschko in the fight’s penultimate round.
Despite the 2017 epic being the pinnacle of Joshua’s illustrious career, Dmitry Salita feels that fight was a turning point in Joshua’s career and that he’s gone backwards since.
Undoubtedly carrying a more cautious approach since the Klitschko battle, it would be over two years before the 2012 Olympic gold medallist would taste his first career defeat against Andy Ruiz.
In 2021, ‘AJ’ would lose for a second time against Oleksandr Usyk, a man he faces again this month. Salita believes the Klitschko win was the ‘peak’ of Joshua’s time in boxing.
“This isn’t to take anything away from AJ, he's a great fighter and did some amazing things in his career, but when he beat Klitschko, that was the peak of his career,” said Salita when speaking to BoyleSports Boxing.
“After that, he's been progressively slipping down just a little bit every fight.
“Ever since the day that ‘AJ’ was supposed to fight Jarrell Miller, but he fought Ruiz, he's been on the way down. Even in his last win against Pulev he looked okay, but he did not look great and did not look like the old ‘AJ’.”