Anthony Joshua: Can any U.S trainer improve him enough to beat Usyk?

By Boxing News - 10/21/2021 - Comments

By Scott Gilfoid: Former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua has been scouring the United States searching for a magic trainer that can turn his career around and help him find the answer to the Oleksandr Usyk riddle.

This week, the former IBF, WBA & WBO heavyweight champion Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) visited the gyms of these prominent trainers in the U.S:

  • Eddy Reynoso
  • Virgil Hunter
  • Robert Garcia
  • Ronnie Shields

Joshua hasn’t met with Andy Lee but he would be the ideal guy to teach him how to fight rough. Lee trained for a period out of Kronk Gym in Detroit and he likely knows how to rough up opponents just as good as Fury’s coach SugarHill Steward.

Some believe that Shields is in the pole position to get the job to take over the seemingly impossible task of leading him to victory against the master boxer Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs).

We heard Shields tell us that Joshua says he wants to be transformed into a “dog” for his rematch with the U.S, as he thinks that’s the magic elixir to get him the victory.

No doubt, Joshua watched WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury’s recent victory over Deontay ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder on October 9th. As such, AJ was likely influenced by the ugly roughhouse tactics ‘The Gypsy King’ used to get the win over the 6’7″ Deontay.

As such, the general idea is for Joshua, 31, to hire one of the U.S trainers to help him do the dirty work of assessing him in the running roughshod over the smaller, weaker Usyk next March.

Joshua wants a trainer who can teach him to rough up Usyk in the way that many boxing fans believe the Kronk Gym-trained SugarHill Steward taught Fury how to work over Deontay in their last two fights.

The Texas trainer Ronnie Shields has coached a lot of different fighters over the years, but he’s not someone known for teaching his pupils how to rough up their opponents.

Image: Anthony Joshua: Can any U.S trainer improve him enough to beat Usyk?

Shields doesn’t need to teach roughhouse tactics because his fighters have had had the talent to where they didn’t need to resort to dirty tricks to try and win.

Here is a small list of the greats that Shields has trained:

Pernell Whitaker
Jermall Charlo
Evander Holyfield
Mike Tyson
David Tua
Jermell Charlo

Out of that group, Holyfield is the only one that used roughhouse tactics at times, but he didn’t go overboard as we saw from Fury.

Also, Holyfield wasn’t known for throwing rabbit punches like we’ve seen from Fury lately. Holyfield had talent, and he didn’t need to resort to roughing up his opponents to win.

If Joshua does choose Shields, I don’t think this great trainer will lower himself to the level of teaching him how to be dirty inside the ring.

A classy trainer like Shields might be surprised if Joshua approaches him by asking him to train him to rough up Usyk. Shields is the type of trainer who would want to teach Joshua how to win fair and square without cheating to win.

You would have to believe that Joshua’s situation is dire if he’s hoping to get a trainer to teach him how to foul Usyk and rough him up with elbows, low blows, rabbit punches, leaning and lacking.

Is this what it’s come to for Joshua? If so, maybe he should change sports and go into MMA, where he rough up his opponents and get away with it.

I hate to say it, but none of the trainers that Joshua visited in the U.S this week will make considerable improvements in his game in time for him to beat Usyk next March.

Even if one of them knows how to teach roughhouse tactics from A to B, that will not help Joshua beat a talent like Usyk.

Well, maybe if Joshua brains Usyk with a rabbit shot the way Fury did to Deontay, he could stun him enough to where his legs are gone. Everyone will see Joshua foul Usyk, and he won’t get credit for the win like Fury.

Gilfoid sees this ending badly for Joshua. He thinks that one of the U.S trainers will be a magic genie that can transform into what he was by design never intended to be.