Anthony Joshua boxing news
By Jeff Aranow: Wladimir Klitschko badly wants to beat IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua next month to become a three-time world champion. According to Wladimir’s trainer Jonathon Banks, he’s obsessed with beating Joshua to become a world champion again. Banks sees the 41-year-old Klitschko as this era’s version of George Foreman.
By Scott Gilfoid: Wladimir Klitschko is the underdog for his April 29 fight against IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, but he doesn’t care. Wladimir says he’s “obsessed” with beating the 27-year-old Joshua to become a world champion for a third time in his long 21-year pro career.
It doesn’t look good for Wladimir, who will be turning 41 on March 25. He hasn’t fought since 2015, and he looked totally gun-shy in his loss to Tyson Fury in his last fight. When did throw his punches, he missed by a country mile every time. It wasn’t that Fury was elusive. It looked more like the case of Wladimir not having the hand-eye coordination needed to hit the big stork-like Fury, who was just begging to be punched with the way he was standing directly in front of the Ukrainian fighter.
By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn says David Haye (28-2, 26 KOs) can forget about fighting IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua if he loses his fight this Saturday night against Tony Bellew (28-2-1, 18 KOs) on Sky Box Office pay-per-view. Hearn promotes Bellew, and he wants him to win the fight, as does Joshua. Haye vs. Joshua would be a huge money fight, but Hearn and Joshua seem to be less than thrilled at the idea of making that fight for some reason.
By Scott Gilfoid: For some reason, IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua is pulling for Tony Bellew to defeat David Haye this Saturday night in their big fight at the O2 Arena in London, UK. Unfortunately for Joshua, Bellew (28-2-1, 18 KOs) is the underdog in the fight, and it’s going to take the perfect set of circumstances for him to pull off the upset against Haye.
By Gav Duthie: It seems like we are seeing a lot of quality coming through in the heavyweight division at present but the man who has dominated it for so long may be too far gone to see the benefits. David Haye revealed this week that camp insiders have told him that former heavyweight king Wladimir Klitschko is really struggling in training camp for his fight with Anthony Joshua and that ring inactivity and age may have caught up to him.
If this turns out to be true and AJ duly dispatches him on April 29th at Wembley Stadium how will this affect Klitschko’s legacy. He may end up like the great Larry Holmes 69-6 (44) who although a legend sometimes doesn’t get the boxing credit he deserves due to a lack of competition in his prime through no fault of his own.
By Scott Gilfoid: If/when former two division world champion David Haye (28-2, 26 KOs) faces IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua (18-0, 18 KOs), he says he’ll train for that fight the same way he’s been training lately. Haye has been having fun in getting ready for his March 4 clash against cruiserweight Tony Bellew.
Instead of putting in a grueling camp for the Bellew fight, Haye has taken it easy and not worn out his 36-year-old body. Haye says it’s working in training this way, and his plan is to do the same thing if he ever gets a fight against Joshua in the future. The two of them will need to keep winning for them to have a chance at fighting each other.
By Scott Gilfoid: The April 29 fight between heavyweights Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko has failed to catch on with the boxing public compared to fights in the past. Wladimir’s brother former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko is confident that Wladimir can beat Joshua or any heavyweight in the division if he’s focused.
Vitali says Wladimir lost his last fight to Tyson Fury because he wasn’t focused in that fight. Vitali is probably right. Wladimir looked like he was in a trance when Vitali and trainer Jonathon Banks were trying to give him instructions in between rounds how to turn things around against Fury.
By Scott Gilfoid: IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua got on his soapbox today to lecture WBC heavyweight champion Deontay “Bronze Bomber” Wilder (37-0, 36 KOs) about the level of his opposition he’s fighting. It seems that Joshua (18-0, 18 KOs) wants Wilder to raise the bar of the opponents he’s facing by taking on better fighters than the likes of #8 WBC Gerald Washington (18-0-1, 12 KOs), who he faces this Saturday night on February 25 on Premier Boxing Champions on Fox from the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Alabama.
The Wilder-Washington fight will also be televised on Sky Sports in the UK. Washington, 34, is a replacement opponent for Wilder, as his previously scheduled challenger Andrzej Wawrzyk was replaced after he tested positive for a banned substance.
By Scott Gilfoid: David Haye (28-2, 26 KOs) is taking a wait and see approach to the outcome of IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua’s next title defense against Wladimir Klitschko on April 29. Haye sees a victory by the 27-year-old Joshua (18-0, 18 KOs) Wladimir as pretty much academic for their match at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
What Haye isn’t sure about is whether Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn will have the confidence to take the fight with him immediately after Wladimir is beaten. While Joshua and Hearn have been chomping at the bit to fight the other heavyweights in the division, they don’t seem nearly as eager to fight Haye for some reason.
By Scott Gilfoid: IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua is talking tough ahead of his title defense against former unified champion Wladimir Klitschko on April 29. Joshua is saying that he needs to be a “killer” and he has to be “off the leash” when he gets inside the ring with the 41-year-old Klitschko in their fight at the Wembley Stadium in London, England.
It almost sounds like the 27-year-old Joshua is going to try and bum rush Klitschko the same way he did Dillian Whyte in their fight in 2015. If that’s the case, I think Wladimir has a decent chance of knocking Joshua out cold.