Following his defeat by Joseph Parker against Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua “turned off.”
Joshua was scheduled to fight longtime foe Wilder twice, but the American wrecked the plans last month when he unexpectedly lost to Parker.
After Deontay Wilder’s defeat to Joseph Parke derailed their $100 million two-fight pact, Anthony Joshua became distracted.
Following his victory over Otto Wallin last month, former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua was expected to face Wilder; however, the American was shockingly defeated by Parker at the same event.
In the heavyweight division, Wilder has been replaced by former UFC champion Francis Ngannou, who will take on Joshua on March 8 in Saudi Arabia.
After defeating Wallin, “AJ” had a well-earned vacation, but after Ngannou’s bout was announced, he was forced to return home.
Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn of Match room Boxing, has acknowledged that after his bout with Wilder went south, the British fighter momentarily lost it.
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Hearn stated on The MMA Hour that “AJ didn’t need a lot of convincing for the Ngannou fight; he is on a run at the moment.”
“After the bout with Wallin, he feels fine. I believe that Wilder kind of shut down for a week or ten days following his defeat. A few days ago, he had to go back and begin camp, so he had to shorten his vacation.”
“I believe that once Wilder lost, he may have simply turned off for a little while, so he needed to turn on again, but he was still going to do it for him.
This is the hardest fight Ngannou has ever faced in his career. Francis is a very dangerous individual, thus they will train to the very last breath in order to win.”
Joshua hopes to defeat Ngannou in order to get the undisputed heavyweight world titles fought against the victor of Tyler Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk. ‘AJ’ has rethought his position on taking on Ngannou after previously calling the fight “gimmicky” and bringing up Ngannou’s crossover fight with Fury.
“He’s going to do all in his power to avoid losing to Francis Ngannou because it’s not a good look. We never expected that because we thought we would be facing Wilder in March. I only discussed Ngannou once, following the Fury bout, but we didn’t get very far,” Hearn continued.
