Anthony Joshua’s mindset has been a hot topic in boxing for the past couple of years, with many observers pushing the view that Joshua has lost the killer instinct that served him so well in his earlier career.
More questions than answers were raised in ‘AJ’s comeback fight against Jermaine Franlin back in April, in which he tentatively boxed his way to a somewhat unconvincing decision victory.
When asked for his thoughts on Joshua’s showing that night by FightHype, American heavyweight contender Jared Anderson stated that, although he felt the Brit should have looked to stop Franklin, some of the hesitation could be attributed to the fact it was his first outing under new coach Derrick James
I feel like any fighter should have that dog instinct to take somebody out. But at the same time, working with a new coach, he might have hesitated on some stuff he would have usually done.
Although ‘The Real Big Baby’ gave Joshua the benefit of the doubt on that front to some extent, he was of absolutely no doubt with regards to what fight caused him to lose his ‘dog.’
The Andy Ruiz knockout.
With huge fights against Dillian Whyte and Deontay Wilder seemingly on the horizon for the remaining half of this year, Joshua and his team will hope the link up with James bears fruit and quickly, or there’s every chance his boxing career as fans know it may reach it’s end before the start of 2024.
As for Anderson, he is fast becoming many people’s first choice as the next king of the heavyweight division, and has the toughest fight of his career to date next month against undefeated Kazakh Zhan Kossobutskiy.