By Sam Volz: Jermaine Franklin insists that Anthony Joshua’s career won’t be over if he beats him on April 1st in their upcoming match-up at the O2 Arena in London.
Franklin (21-1, 14 KOs) says that Joshua’s recent two losses to Oleksandr Usyk are difficult to gauge right now because the three-belt heavyweight champion could go on to beat some big names that would lessen the impact of AJ’s defeats against him.
Right now, it looks bad that Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) was twice beaten by the 35-year-old Usyk because those are the only two significant wins for Oleksandr since he moved up to the heavyweight division in 2019. However, if Usyk beats Tyson Fury in April, Joshua’s two defeats against him won’t look nearly as bad.
Still, if Joshua is beaten by Franklin, it would be a devastating defeat nonetheless, as it would be the 33-year-old former two-time heavyweight champion’s fourth loss in his last six fights, and would make it clear that he’s not going to be able to pull out of his downward plunge.
Joshua recently hired American trainer Derrick James in hopes that he could turn his career around. Still, unfortunately, the problems that have been exposed in AJ’s recent defeats against Usyk and Andy Ruiz Jr are beyond what any coach can fix.
It’s quite possible that if Joshua loses to Franklin, Derrick will soon be replaced, and the search will continue for another trainer to fix what can’t be fixed.
“He lost to Usyk, who is now almost a unified champion. Usyk hasn’t lost to anybody, so how can we say AJ’s career is over when we don’t know what Usyk is capable of,” said Jermaine Franklin to talkSPORT Boxing when asked if Anthony Joshua’s career will be over if he loses to him on April 1st.
“We jump the gun to put him down, but what if this guy [Usyk] goes on to beat other great guys [e.g., Tyson Fury & Joe Joyce]? It’s not the same conversation anymore.
“Boxing does that to us like that too. The organizations does it like that too. If he [Joshua] were to lose to me, they’d probably push him down a little bit when I think he doesn’t deserve to be pushed down the list unless Usyk takes a couple of losses.
“Now it reflects upon AJ, but if Usyk goes on to beat some top guys, then how can we say AJ is done because he just lost to a great guy?” Franklin continued.
“It is the money. A lot of us come from bad significant backgrounds, so a lot of us make our way out of nothing, but at the same time, I have a heavy passion for the sport,” said Franklin, reacting to Joshua saying that his motivation for fighting is to make money.
“I’ve been watching the Usyk [vs. Joshua] fight. Usyk did some stuff that caught my attention in there. I’ve been watching the Usyk fight to paint a picture between some of the old fights to see if Usyk did something new that he couldn’t adjust to, or has this always been a problem? He works with Lomachenko, and they do the same thing,” said Franklin.