ANTHONY JOSHUA is at a stage in his career where he is trying to find the right combination to become a heavyweight champion once again.
The 33-year-old will have her second match under new coach Derrick James on August 26 against former rival Dillian Whyte. Eight years ago, Joshua defeated his former opponent in a flamboyant showdown, which ended in a seventh-round stoppage-time victory for ‘AJ’.
Joshua is just a few months away from turning 10 years professional, helping him win British championships and multiple world belts. Watford-born superstar will join his 29lame pants match when he faced Whyte but last time Joshua wasn’t at his best when he beat Jermaine Franklin.
This week, the former heavyweight champion is a guest on the show boxing news podcast – Opening bell. The 2012 Olympic gold medalist spoke about the match against Franklin and offered a candid assessment of his performance.
“It sucks but I’ve been through a lot and I’m still going through a lot in that Franklin game,” he admitted.
“I know it’s not as good as it might be it’s not for any reason, it’s just that I’ve been through a lot and I think I’ve erased all of that from my conscience.”
For Joshua and coach Derrick James, all that matters is winning at the end of the night.
“That’s the most important thing,” said the boxer.
“Just win. Don’t get hit. My body has suffered too many injuries. Even the matches that I still participate in are not impressive. I have suffered a lot of punishment over the years. I got over with the competition now my body is healed In the fight with Franklin I fought more cautiously than now, like let’s go fuck it let’s go and dig deep against that Franklin, I think we only did three twelfths, two twelfth rounds. But now we’re doing 12 on Monday, 12 on Wednesday, 12 on Saturday. I hope it pays off. I have to dig deep but I don’t know where it will take me.”
Joshua knows that Deontay Wilder is the dangling carrot if he beats Whyte again next month. For years, the British and the Americans were constantly involved in going to war with each other, and once or twice that seemed imminent. Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn is more confident than ever that they will fight, in the Middle East, later this year or early next year.
boxing news Editor Matt Christie asked Joshua if everything Wilder said distracted him.
“Always,” he replied.
“You know what I’m also happy because now people can see that there are people who create glitches and barriers. It’s not always that I don’t want to fight Wilder. In the past, people used to think oh AJ is hiding or he doesn’t want to fight. Really annoying. It’s also a big risk, but I’ll fight.
“If you look at my career, you can see that I always wanted to fight anyone at any time, if it was Joseph Parker, Klitschko, Charles Martin, Dillian Whyte for the British. How could I not want to fight Wilder? We collect all belts. I’ve never fought a guy for them. I went and fought people for them, but it was annoying, yes, very annoying. Now I’m not really interested in talking about Wilder until it turns out to be true. I’ve done all of that before.”
