Anthony Joshua has opened up about losing the chance to fight for the undisputed heavyweight championship – at least for now – and picked his favoured winner should it be contested by Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk.
Joshua knows Usyk well inside the ring. The Ukrainian handed him his first back-to-back defeats, taking his WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO belts for good measure.
His relationship with Fury is less clear, with messy fight negotiations falling apart in such a way that leaves fans wondering whether the two British heavyweights will ever face off.
Not long ago, it looked like the fight between them may have been for all the belts. That was before Usyk came to town and outboxed Joshua over 24 rounds.
The Watford man opened up to iD Boxing about how it felt to lose the historic undisputed opportunity.
“You saw after the last fight what that meant to me, yeah? Whether you like it or not that’s just pure passion. If you don’t like it don’t tune in. That’s what I’m about. I fight. I love it. I’m passionate about it, and I want to win. I wanted to bring it back home – that was a passion. I wanted to bring it back to the UK, and fight for the undisputed championship of the world, and I lost it. And it killed me.”
Moving on to who he’ll be backing, ‘AJ’ is behind his countryman.
“I’ll be in support of Fury for that fight.”
Whether Joshua made his pick because he wants an undisputed super fight with Fury, he doesn’t fancy it with Usyk a third time, or simply because of Great British pride, he’s made his position clear.