Former rivals George Groves and Carl Froch have differing views on Anthony Joshua’s ongoing rotation of trainers.
For the first years of his professional career, Joshua was settled with Team GB coach Rob McCracken, who helped to guide him to unified world heavyweight titles.
However, after losing in his first fight with Oleksandr Usyk, Joshua decided to switch things up and worked for one camp with American Robert Garcia.
The rematch went the same way as the first fight with Joshua losing out over 12 rounds, and he again decided to look for a new trainer.
This time he settled with another American in Derrick James, who works with Errol Spence Jr and Ryan Garcia amongst others.
For his fight this weekend with Otto Wallin on the Day of Reckoning card in Saudi Arabia, Joshua will be cornered by Ben Davison, the man who was in Tyson Fury’s corner for his comeback, including the first fight with Deontay Wilder and one with Wallin in 2019.
Speaking to TNT Sports, Froch gave his view on the change and suggested it was a bad idea.
“If AJ stayed with Rob McCracken like he did when he lost to Ruiz then beat him in the rematch when he boxed and moved with a gameplan, he’d be in a far better position than he’s in now.
“I think Ben Davison has a huge mountain to climb with AJ. I don’t think AJ is paying much attention to anybody.”
Groves then disagreed and said that sometimes a change can be good.
“I think sticking with the same coach through your whole career, sometimes it works for some fighters, but ultimately you’re going to learn something new with a new trainer, and it does take time, you can’t necessarily create something in one camp, but you will if you spent time in different gyms, different parts of the world, different cultures.”
Whether or not this has been a good move will show on Saturday once the first bell sounds.