By Jake Tiernan: Jermaine Franklin believes he’s discovered the kryptonite to bring former unified heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua to earth on April 1st in their scheduled 12-round fight on DAZN at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Franklin (21-1, 14 KOs), who arguably should still be undefeated, is 100% convinced that the surefire way of defeating him is by hitting him with an avalanche of punches to break him mentally.
With Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs), Franklin notes that it’s more mental than physical, as he HATES getting hit and becomes frustrated when his opponents touch him with shots. It doesn’t seem to matter if they lack power.
Joshua does not enjoy getting hit and starts to question himself, and falls to pieces rapidly, which we saw in his two fights with Oleksandr Usyk.
Even when AJ fought Dillian Whyte in 2015, he was shaky in the second and third rounds when he got hit with punches that weren’t the bazooka variety we’ve seen from ‘The Body Snatcher’ during his career. Whyte had Joshua questioning himself with average blows to the head and body.
Joshua gets frustrated when getting hit
“He doesn’t like to be touched. From everything I watched, he doesn’t like to get touched a lot,” said Jermaine Franklin to Tru School Sports. “So just hitting him will frustrate him a lot.”
“Basically, I’m going to go in there and stay busy, get him out of his game plan. We’re going to be ready for whatever. It doesn’t matter if he wants to box or if he wants to brawl,” said Franklin.
It’s interesting that Franklin, 29, was able to pick up the deficiency in Joshua’s game so quickly, which other opponents of his have failed to identify.
That shows Franklin’s keen insight and explains why he got the better of Whyte last November in their fight at the Wembley Arena in London.
Franklin understood how to defeat Dillian and went about his business like a surgeon, getting the better of him in virtually every exchange until the final seconds of the 12th when he was momentarily knocked off balance by a big left hook shot that caused him to fall into the ropes.
“I want to nail everybody to the canvas. I’m going to go in there and beat him down to where there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that I won the fight,” said Franklin.
