David Haye is once again backing Anthony Joshua to beat Oleksandr Usyk but insists he has to gets his tactics right this time.
Usyk defends his WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles against Joshua on August 20 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
It’s the first fight for both men since last September when the Ukrainian got the better of the Brit over 12 rounds.
Haye picked Joshua to win that night at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and told Gareth A. Davies that he is doing so again.
Speaking about the rematch, the former heavyweight champ said:
“I’m going to go with Anthony Joshua again. I went with him in a big way in the first fight. He didn’t fight in the manner which I thought he was going to that I think would have given him the best chance of winning.”
“He applied probably the worst tactics you could do against a southpaw. Gave him range, was respectful inside, in close. There was no warnings from the ref about deducting points because he never imposed himself.”
In eighteen days time Joshua will call on the services of new training team Robert Garcia and Angel Fernandez to come up with the right strategy to overcome Usyk.
Haye says they will emphasise to the Olympic Gold Medallist that to beat the pound-for-pound star he has to abandon the sweet science and employ some of the darker arts.
The ‘Hayemaker’ even suggested that ‘AJ’ needs to run the risk of getting disqualified to get his hand raised:
“I think he’s [Joshua] watched it back and knows what he needs to do. He’s got a good team who’s gonna drill it into him that this is not a boxing match, this has got to be a dog fight from the first bell.”
“He should be this close to getting a point deducted or disqualified, that’s how physical he needs to be because he’s a specimen like no other in the heavyweight division.”
“He is physically the supreme heavyweight right now. He just needs to apply that into a style that’s useful and last time round it wasn’t very useful at all and this time around he really has to do it. And I believe he will do it.”
In a recent interview with DAZN Haye made another bold claim that in his prime he would’ve beaten all of today’s crop of British heavyweights.