Roy Jones Jr has weighed in with some comments on Anthony Joshua’s future, naming the heavyweight he would avoid fighting next if he was part of Joshua’s matchmaking team.
Jones was actually in talks to be Joshua’s new trainer following his defeat to Oleksandr Usyk in Jeddah last year, however ‘AJ’ opted to team up with Dallas based trainer Derrick James instead.
In a recent feature with ID Boxing, Jones named former WBC world champion Deontay Wilder as the man Joshua should swerve for the time being.
“It’s a very tough fight for him. I love ‘AJ’ to death and I think he’s a great fighter. But his issue right now is dealing with punches coming back at him, so you don’t want to fight Wilder.”
“Those punches that will be coming at you from him are different to anybody else in the division, so he’s got to go get that taken care of before he goes in front of Wilder.”
Joshua and Wilder have been incessantly linked to a fight for the best part of six years now, and were actually in advanced negotiations for what would have been an undisputed world title clash back in 2018.
The cross Atlantic meeting ultimately never materialised, however, and the pair went on to establish different nemeses – Tyson Fury in the case of Wilder; Andy Ruiz Jr and Usyk for Joshua.
Rumours of a fresh negotiations for the fight that never was have sprung up again in recent weeks, with speculation that arguably the heavyweight division’s two heaviest punchers could be set to finally lock horns for a king’s ransom in Saudi Arbia.