By Jake Tiernan: Jermaine Franklin’s coach Jesse Addison feels that Anthony Joshua’s career doesn’t have to end when he gets beaten by Jermaine Franklin on Saturday, April 1st, at the O2 Arena in London, England.
Addison points out that many great heavyweights in the past, like Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, and Joe Frazier, kept fighting despite taking occasional losses, and they continued to enjoy success. He feels this is the new era in boxing where fighters can lose but still keep going rather than quit.
Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) said this week that he’ll hang up his gloves if he gets beaten by Franklin (21-1, 14 KOs), which is surprising because the American should still be undefeated after losing a VERY, very, very controversial 12 round decision to British fighter Dillian Whyte last November in London.
Most boxing fans have Franklin winning an easy decision, and they saw the outcome as just another example of the poisonous old-fashioned hometown decisions that have stained the sport throughout history.
This event is called the ‘New Dawn,’ which is a name that suggests a new beginning for the 33-year-old former unified heavyweight champion and 2012 Olympic gold medalist Joshua.
He’s starting fresh with a new coach Derrick James, who it’s believed is attempting to revamp his game, improve his stamina and bring him back to the seek & destroy style he had earlier in his career. Joshua went away from that style after his close call with Wladimir Klitschko in 2017 and became a cautious fighter that wasn’t as aggressive or entertaining as he’d been before that battle.
The way Joshua has fought in the last six years has been alien to how he’d performed earlier in his career and the amateurs and was in every respect the wrong style for him
“I’m going to get the win by any means possible. But if I can put him on his a**, then that’s what I’m going to try to do,” said Jermaine Franklin at the final press conference with Anthony Joshua. “Anything is possible. I made it this far.”
“At any given time, a fighter is there for the taking,” said Jesse Addison, the trainer for Jermaine Franklin. “I respect everything Anthony Joshua has accomplished as a fighter. don’t feel like if he loses this fight that his career is over. That’s just the new era of boxing.
“I see my man winning the fight. If we win by knockout, he’ll win the fight.
