Anthony Joshua vs. Eric Molina: Rising heavyweight sensation Anthony Joshua (17-0, 17 KO) will return to action this Saturday afternoon on Showtime. Joshua will be challenged by veteran Eric Molina (25-3, 19 KO) who is fresh off the best win of his career, a late round stoppage of former contender Tomasz Adamek. The fight is scheduled to go 12 rounds and Joshua's IBF title will be on the line. The last four Joshua opponents came into the fight with undefeated records and all four were knocked out before the eighth round. However, all of those Joshua opponents were very limited in what they could do and Molina will be more of the same. The last two times Molina fought a heavyweight near the top of the division he was knocked out by Chris Arreola in the first round and then was knocked out by Deontay Wilder in the ninth round. Joshua is an orthodox fighter whose power is his calling card. The young fighter out of the U.K. likes to work behind his jab which he uses as a measuring stick for his power punches. While Joshua has a strong left hook his best punch is his right hand, and that is the punch that usually ends fights. Defensively though Joshua still has room for improvement and he has been hurt in fights before. Molina is also an orthodox fighter and he will be giving up the height and reach advantage to Joshua. Offensively Molina is very one dimensional in that all he really does is try to land the homerun right hand. Molina will sometimes set up that right hand by using a jab to measure the distance, but often he just wings the right hand but he lacks the top end power that Joshua has. Some have questioned the chin of Joshua so Molina has a shot to score the upset if he can catch the younger man with his right hand but that is really his only chance. Joshua is younger, more athletic, and more skilled and he will do what he wants with Molina before finally stopping him in the sixth round.
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