Radio personality and boxing enthusiast, Simon Jordan, has not held back in his assessment of Anthony Joshua and his chances against the top fighters in the division.
Joshua lost his world titles when he was defeated by Oleksandr Usyk back in 2021. On the back of that loss he changed trainer to Robert Garcia, but suffered the same fate to the Ukrainian in their rematch in Saudi Arabia eleven months later.
The Garcia relationship became strained and he was scrapped in favour of Derrick James, who became AJ’s third trainer in as many fights.
James guided Joshua to his first win in two years with a wide decision victory over American Jermaine Franklin in April, but it wasn’t the statement performance fans had been hoping for.
When Jordan was joined by Johnny Nelson on his Up Front podcast, attention turned to how the Olympic gold medalist would now fare against the best in the division.
“In my view is that his demise started after he fought Klitschko, where he went into a certain place to have to win that fight. I think since then he’s gone on and fought in a certain way which has taken him out of the way of risk and he isn’t prepared to put himself in the way of risk that he once did before, when he was a wrecking machine.
Recently we’ve seen him fight Franklin when it seemed to be the same situation was there. There might have been a few technical improvements where he stepped back and took his time and got range a little it better.
The boxing world is now turning full circle on Anthony Joshua and saying ‘you’re done’. I think people are actually beginning to laugh at the concept that Anthony Joshua could beat one of the top heavyweights now.”
Joshua isn’t short of opponents for his next move. He looks set to face one of the top contenders before the year is done, with a Deontay Wilder fight in talks for Saudi Arabia in December. This week Tyson Fury has also called him out for an all-British blockbuster at Wembley in September.