Anthony Joshua has praised his rival Tyson Fury for his 11th round knockout victory over Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas, Nevada earlier this month.
In a rough and tumble brawl, WBC heavyweight champion Fury 31-0-1 (22) dropped Wilder 42-2 (41) in rounds three, ten and 11 but found himself on the canvas twice in the fourth. The scores at the time of the stoppage were 94-92, 95-91 and 95-92.
“Fury done really well for a man in his first title defence as a champion,” Joshua told iFL TV. “It shows just how tough it is being champion at the moment.
“But he did very well to come through the storm, but [Fury’s trainer] SugarHill [Steward] deserves a round of applause in the corner. That helped him a lot having that trust and wisdom in his corner, a great corner set-up.
“Well done to him WBC champion of the world and two-time champion. It is lovely for his wife and family particularly his old man [John Fury] who deserves it and is his biggest fucking supporter. So it is lovely to see him making his family proud same as I make my family proud so well done to them. And Sugar Hill Steward and Andy Lee have done a superb job with Tyson.”
Joshua also offered his assessment on Wilder, who came into the fight saying he had developed his boxing skills under new coach Malik Scott.
“I would of iced half the motherfuckers he has in his fights,” Joshua said. “And then you come up against one of two good fighters and it shows how difficult it is at the top level.
“And he is trying to learn now because he has realised ‘shit, Fury is a decent fighter’ and if he uses his ability to learn as fuel he could go far in the next three or four years.”
Reflecting on losing his WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight titles to Ukrainian southpaw Oleksandr Usyk 19-0 (13) last month, revealed why he tried to box the master boxer.
“I’m a twelve round fighter and you saw in the other fight [Fury vs Wilder] a few weeks after that after two or three rounds the energy was depleted,” Joshua said.
“It’s not really, what I thought, the right way of boxing. I started working on different elements of my boxing and boxing the same in round one as round twelve, learning to slip and roll shots better, etc.
“The obvious thing was to go out there and use a lot of my natural ability, but after a while in my career I started thinking that I want to scrap what I can naturally do and improve certain areas that I was weaker on.
“It’s definitely not lost time – I learned different things, the importance of the jab, the importance of the push away and the feint, the difference between counter-punching and counter attacking… I just divulged myself in the sweet science of boxing.
“But with that fight, it’s clear that styles make fights and I adopted the wrong style. That’s not to say next time I’ll go out there and swing like a mad man, but I have certain strengths that will cause him and a lot of other people a lot of problems.”
Former undisputed cruiserweight champion Usyk was thought by some pundits to be too small to compete with the genuine big boys of the heavyweight division, but Joshua dismissed those claims.
“Remember that Usyk was a heavyweight from the WSB (World Series Boxing) time and dropped down to cruiserweight,” he said. “He probably realised that he’s one of the smaller heavyweights at that time and he’s built himself up.
“He had about 400 amateur fights and he’s seen people try and rough him up millions of times so just to have that one style is silly. I have one thing on my mind and that’s war, that’s murder – just to go out there and hurt the guy and take his soul to the point where he wants to give up. That’s what boxing’s about.
“I’ve learned that if you hit people constantly and keep on applying the same amount of pressure then they will realise you are not going anywhere and that you’re here to stay.
“That’s all I have in my mind at the minute – that one track and to stay on course and take this guy to places he doesn’t want to go.”
