Anthony Joshua’s new coach, Derrick James, has dismissed any criticism of his fighter’s performance against Jermaine Franklin.
‘AJ’ controlled the twelve rounds against Franklin, winning a comfortable unanimous decision. Despite displaying a solid jab and plentiful gas tank, pundits labeled him tentative and gun shy in the aftermath.
Speaking to the DAZN Boxing Show, James said he was happy with the two-time heavyweight champion’s performance, and shot down any ideas that it was ‘the same old’ Joshua.
“I was happy, because he did exactly what I wanted him to do. People said they wanted to see him do this or that, that wasn’t in my plan, because it’s like this, when getting with somebody new, you have to simplify to where he’s not thinking about it, he can just do it naturally.
So people say ‘the same old AJ’ – nah you didn’t see the same old AJ. Because of the movements and everything he did to take away from Jermaine Franklin. He’s a tough fighter and he’s gonna fight you to the end. But we never let him be in the fight.”
The narrative leading up to the fight was that Joshua needed an early stoppage to re-announce himself on the heavyweight scene following two losses to Oleksandr Usyk.
James couldn’t care less about how people wanted the fight to end, inviting the blame because it was his game plan.
“If anybody want to talk about Joshua, talk about me. Because I did the game plans, I did the strategy. He just did what I asked him to do … Be mad at me, talk about me, cause it was all strategy, it was all game plan. He followed it to a tee.”
The trainer praised Joshua’s consistency in the strategy they had devised in camp – and they plan to start it all over again in the next few weeks.