Saul Alvarez has weighed in on the debate about Anthony Joshua’s bizarre rant in the wake of his last fight.
The Brit lost an inexplicable split decision to Oleksandr Usyk in Saudi Arabia earlier this month in their rematch.
Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) performed far better at the Jeddah Superdome in the kingdom than he did in the first fight between the pair last September.
But he failed to recapture the WBA Super, IBF, IBO and WBO world titles as Ukraine’s Usyk added the vacant Ring Magazine belt to his collection with the win.
Afterwards, ‘AJ’ was “left out to dry” by his team as he took the microphone and began a tirade for which he later apologised.
And Alvarez has moved to give his take on the matter, tellingES News:
“You never know what happened in his head. You can’t judge people because maybe, for him, it’s really hard to take that [loss] and you need to respect that because you have never been in that position.”
‘Canelo’, whose first career defeat came against Floyd Mayweather nearly a decade ago, lost his last fight to Dmitry Bivol as he stepped up in weight to take on the Russian for the WBA light-heavyweight championship.
He returns next month in a defence of his WBA Super, IBF, WBC and WBO world super-middleweight titles at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas in a trilogy showdown against Gennadiy Golovkin.
But he is backing Joshua, 32, to come back potentially better than ever after defeat in his first fight under new coach Robert Garcia.
“Only he [Joshua] knows what happened but he’s going to come back stronger and I really believe in that.”
After his loss to 35-year-old Usyk, who is a former undisputed world champion at cruiserweight, Joshua hinted that he wanted a quick return to the ring as he looks to get back to winning ways sooner rather than later.