By Jake Tiernan: Promoter Bob Arum sees it as not a big deal that Anthony Joshua wants to fight on Tyson Fury’s undercard in December because he says that AJ isn’t well-known with U.S fans.
Arum says it’s a “Brit thing” about the struggling former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (26-3, 23 KOs) wanting to be added to the Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk card on December 23rd because the UK boxing fans would give a fig about this.
It may be a shock to the British fans, but Joshua isn’t a big name with American casual fans, as they’ve not seen him other than the time he was knocked out in the seventh round by the chubby career fringe contender Andy Ruiz Jr in their fight in New York City in June 2019.
That was four years ago, and the younger American fans have no clue who Joshua is and wouldn’t care if he’d added to Fury’s undercard fight in December. Maybe the UK fans would be over the moon to have Joshua on Fury’s undercard, but American fans don’t care.
The people who know of AJ in the States see him as the guy who lost to Ruiz and was beaten twice by Usyk. For them, that’s all the Americans need to know about Joshua to not be excited at the possibility of him being added to the Fury-Usyk undercard in December.
Adding Joshua to the card would be a little better than trotting out another British heavyweight, like Dereck Chisora or Dillian Whyte. It would be pretty much the same.
They don’t even know who Deontay Wilder is because he stopped fighting for the most part after his loss to Fury in 2021. When you don’t fight in the U.S. or stay active with your career, fans have no idea who you are.
“He was offered the fight without being on the undercard. He was offered twice to be the main event with Tyson, but it didn’t happen. I’m fed up talking about it,” said Frank Warren to iFL TV, reacting to being told that Tyson Fury had criticized Anthony Joshua for begging to be on his undercard of his December 23rd undisputed heavyweight championship with Oleksandr Usyk.
It is pathetic that Joshua wants to fight on Fury’s undercard in December, but it shows you the state of his self-esteem at this point in his career. Those two losses to Usyk and the defeat against Ruiz have really messed with Joshua’s head. He’s not the confident fighter he once was, and is sad that he’s eager to take an undercard assignment.
“You asked me a question about him [Anthony Joshua], and everyone says that we have to bring him up. I never bring him up,” Warren continued about AJ. “He’s been brought up. I feel sorry for the guy. He’s had four days he’s had to be in the dark. Was it a dark room or whoever he’s gone?”
Joshua seems to think he’s going to come out of his four days in the darkness a new man, but it’s a waste of time. Once he gets back on the front lines in combat, he’s going to be dealing with the same flashbacks he’s been having. Joshua looks like a classic picture of a shell-shocked soldier who has seen too much horror in battle. That will not change by him sitting in a dark room for four days.
“Well, you know what it is? He’s probably fed up listening to the bull s**t from his promoter [Eddie Hearn],” said Warren.
“As far as I’m concerned, this is an English thing; it’s a real Brit thing,” said Bob Arum. “As far as I’m concerned, nobody in the United States really knows Anthony Joshua because the only time he fought in the United States, Andy Ruiz knocked him out.”
