British heavyweight, Dave Allen, claims to have boxed Anthony Joshua’s head off several times in sparring.
Allen is a popular fighter who has faced some big names in the heavyweight division. ‘The White Rhino’s best win came when he stopped Lucas Browne back in 2019, but six defeats for the 31-year-old against the likes of Luis Ortiz, Dillian Whyte and David Price have seen him fail to up his levels.
In his last outing, he retired at the end of the sixth round against Olympic Bronze medalist, Frazer Clarke, after appearing to burst an ear drum.
The Doncaster born fighter has sparred some of the best heavyweights in the world, including Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk and Joshua.
Speaking to BBTV Boxing, Allen believes people read too much into sparring but did claim to have gotten the better of ‘AJ’ on several occasions.
“I see a lot of people read a lot into sparring, sparring means nothing.
I used to spar Anthony Joshua and some days I would box Anthony Joshua’s head off, God’s honest truth. When I first came into the scene fighting on Matchroom shows I used to tell everyone that I boxed his head off a few times because I did.
But we spar at like 5pm, that day I woke up a midday, probably had something nice to eat, just chill out and then go and spar. He’d been up at 7am doing strength and conditioning and doing track work and all the rest of it, I was fresh as a daisy. So many things to factor in.”
After the Clarke defeat, Allen has vowed to carry on after some retirement questions, whereas Joshua is eyeing the biggest fights possible, with Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury on his hit list.