Eddie Hearn has revealed what happened in the dressing room after Anthony Joshua’s defeat to Oleksandr Usyk.
The Matchroom head honcho was ringside in Saudi Arabia last Saturday as his charge lost to the Ukrainian by a split decision in their rematch.
Joshua was bidding to become a three-time unified champion at heavyweight and looking to regain the WBA Super, IBF, IBO and WBO titles he lost to the 35-year-old in their first fight at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last September.
But despite a much-improved display, Olympic champion Joshua, who had his new coach Robert Garcia in the corner with him for the first time, was on the wrong end of 113-115, 116-112 and 115-113 scorecards at the Jeddah Superdome as former undisputed cruiserweight champion Usyk added WBC champion Tyson Fury’s old Ring Magazine belt to his collection of silverware.
And Hearn, who took a plethora of questions from the media in the aftermath of Joshua’s third defeat in his past five fights, explained the atmosphere backstage after the fight.
“He went through the whole fight with Robert Garcia.
“[He was] kicking himself, [saying] ‘I should have done this, I should have done that, why didn’t I do this?’
“[He was] shouting a bit but he’s just devastated to lose.”
Hearn has been very vocal since the outcome of the fight about the criticism 32-year-old Joshua has received, insisting that the sport wouldn’t be where it is without the man who found the sport after the scare of being imprisoned.
Meanwhile, the victor in the fight, Usyk, is now targeting an all-the-belts showdown with the aforementioned Fury (32-0-1, 23 KOs), the only one who holds a piece of real estate not belonging to the undefeated southpaw, that could well be worth an eye-watering £200million.
Fury, who was retired as of 10 days ago, was quick to accept Usyk’s challenge of a fight, stating that he will win back the titles for Britain, having previously been unified champion himself back in 2015 after dethroning long-time ruler Wladimir Klitschko in Germany.
You can watch the full interview with Eddie Hearn below courtesy of Boxing Social Youtube channel: