Carl Froch has branded Anthony Joshua’s comments on his former trainer, Rob McCracken, ‘disgusting.’
Joshua was with McCracken through the Olympics and his first 26 fights as a pro, in which he collected three heavyweight titles, lost them and regained them in an immediate rematch.
The relationship came to an end when ‘AJ’ lost his belts again, this time to Oleksandr Usyk. He linked up briefly with Robert Garcia for the rematch, but another defeat saw him seek the help of acclaimed Texan trainer, Derrick James.
When discussing his relationship with James recently, Joshua branded McCracken ‘a really good coach’ but went on to say that he didn’t teach him defence – a point he believed could be illustrated by pointing out the nose of McCracken-trained Froch.
Speaking to TalkBOXING, ‘The Cobra’ first responded to the ‘personal insult.’
“First I’ve got to laugh. Secondly, what I’ll say to that is for a grown man to try and personally insult another grown man on his physical appearance, that’s a b**ch move.
Just let him come out with that. Let him have it. I sincerely hope he’s talking about the old nose and not the newly-constructed piece of art that I’m carrying around on my face at the minute.”
Froch then criticised Joshua’s opinion of McCracken, pointing out the successes they had together.
“I’m looking at this as a real dig at Rob McCracken. This is a guy who’s a master of his craft … Rob McCracken is a man that first of all got AJ out of jail, literally. Do your research, whatever you want to do on that.”
“He also guided him to an Olympic Gold Medal in 2012. He’s working with someone who’s not a natural fighter in Anthony Joshua. He’s not had that amateur pedigree … he’s having to engineer and force stuff to get all the basics right. He did a fantastic job.”
“Then he guided him to not one but two world titles. And he’s got the audacity and the disrespect to say that he wasted years with Rob McCracken and he didn’t teach him defence. To me, that’s disgusting. There’s no comeback from that for AJ.”
“It’s out of order. I think he’ll probably regret what he said. I’m not gonna hold it against him.”
Froch went on to say that Joshua would have been better served in his rematch with Usyk by sticking with McCracken and caring less about defence.
He goes into a rematch with Dillian Whyte on August 12 as his second fight under the tutelage of Derrick James.