Messi-Ronaldo debate persists, but fans starting to respect both.
British Heavyweight Boxer, Anthony Joshua, believes Cristiano Ronaldo would beat Lionel Messi in a boxing match. In an interview with ‘Misfits’, Anthony Joshua was asked which two non-boxers would he love to see fight inside the ring. The boxer, a huge football fan, picked one of the most well-known rivalries in football history.
The Former Champion stated he would love to see Cristiano Ronaldo take on Lionel Messi inside the boxing ring. Joshua picked Cristiano to win as he favored the Portuguese over the Argentine. “Messi’s got that vision though. I can imagine him bobbing and weaving, angles, but yeah, it’d be tough,” he stated giving Messi his credit.
Anthony Joshua was asked whether he would fight the Portuguese if the opportunity arises to which he replied, “Nah, I respect Ronaldo.” The interviewer also asked about a possible fight between Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Romelu Lukaku. “That would be a bad boy fight,” Joshua replied. The AC Milan and Inter Milan striker shared a heated moment on the pitch where the argument apparently became personal.
“‘Yeah, they don’t like each other anyway, do they?” Anthony asked. With both players in the heavyweight category, fans can only dream of such a case to arise. Anthony Joshua is expected to face Deontay Wilder in Saudi Arabia before the end of 2023.
Related: Chelsea legend John Terry defends Mason Mount’s controversial Manchester United transfer, says there is an ‘untold story’ behind the move
Cristiano Ronaldo vs Lionel Messi
Cristiano Ronaldo faced Lionel Messi, for the first time, in the 2008 fixture when Manchester United faced Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League. A rare moment where two of the best faced each other. After Ronaldo’s move to Real Madrid in 2009, the two faced each other every season.
As of January 2023, the two have faced each other a total of 36 times. Lionel Messi has a better win rate with 16 wins as compared to Ronaldo’s 11, while also leading in goals by 22 to 21. The Argentine is also the only one, among the two, to have scored a hattrick against the other when Barcelona beat Real Madrid in March 2014. Cristiano Ronaldo however scores more consistently than the Argentine. In 20 out of their 36 meetings, Lionel Messi did not score a single goal. Compared to Ronaldo’s 18, Ronaldo has a higher expectancy to score compared to the Argentine.
While fans may never see the two in a boxing ring against one another, the two have played almost a season’s worth of games against each other. That is the only metric fans have to compare the greats.