Former cruiserweight and heavyweight world champion, David Haye, has criticised Anthony Joshua’s latest outing as a ‘sparring session’ after the Brit claimed a fairly uneventful unanimous decision victory over Jermaine Franklin.
‘AJ’ comfortably outpointed the American with victory never in doubt in what was his first contest under new coach, Derrick James.
On the back of that performance Haye believes that, if Joshua is planning on fighting Deontay Wilder in December, he must have another fight in the interim to give himself a better chance of victory.
In an interview with iFL TV, ‘The Hayemaker’ encouraged a rematch between Joshua and long-term rival, Dillian Whyte, after saying the Franklin fight didn’t test him enough.
“If he believes that he can beat Wilder and he is going to take that fight, great, then fight Dillian [before]. Why not?
It’s a great fight for the fans, Dillian comes to bring it, there will be a lot of people thinking that Dillian may be able to cause the upset and I think it will be a real, intense fight. It will be a lot more intense than him and Franklin the other night, which was like a sparring session
You are diminishing your chances of victory by having too long out of the ring. If Wilder wants to take that amount of time out of the ring, OK, if Anthony wants to give himself the best chance of victory, he needs to be active and he needs to be active against a fighter who throws big hooks. The best person for that is Dillian, he throws some of the best hooks in the business, his left hook is one of the best in the game.”
Eddie Hearn has recently provided a positive update on the chances of seeing Joshua-Wilder in Saudi Arabia this December, and has also said he would like ‘AJ’ to fight this summer. Whether that will be against Whyte remains to be seen.