By Daily Sports Nigeria on April 7, 2023

Anthony Joshua’s new coach, Derrick James, has dismissed any criticism of the British-Nigerian’s performance against Jermaine Franklin last weekend at the 02 Arena in London.

Joshua controlled the twelve rounds against Franklin, winning a comfortable unanimous decision. Despite displaying a solid jab and plentiful gas tank, pundits labeled him tentative and gun shy in the aftermath.

Speaking to the DAZN Boxing Show, James said he was happy with the two-time heavyweight champion’s performance, and shot down any ideas that it was the same Joshua saying he only did what he was told.

“I was happy, because he did exactly what I wanted him to do. People said they wanted to see him do this or that, that wasn’t in my plan, because it’s like this, when getting with somebody new, you have to simplify to where he’s not thinking about it, he can just do it naturally.

“So people say ‘the same old AJ’ – nah you didn’t see the same old AJ. Because of the movements and everything he did to take away from Jermaine Franklin.”

He’s a tough fighter and he’s gonna fight you to the end. But we never let him be in the fight.”

The narrative leading up to the fight was that Joshua needed an early stoppage to re-announce himself on the heavyweight scene following two losses to Oleksandr Usyk.

James did not care about how people wanted the fight to end, inviting the blame because it was his game plan.

“If anybody want to talk about Joshua, talk about me. Because I did the game plans, I did the strategy. He just did what I asked him to do … Be mad at me, talk about me, cause it was all strategy, it was all game plan. He followed it to a tee.”

The trainer praised Joshua’s consistency in the strategy they had devised in camp and they plan to start it all over again in the next few weeks for a new opponent in July.

Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn has provided an update on the potential of his star man challenging for Tyson Fury’s WBC Heavyweight World Title this year.

In discussing their future plans with IFL TV, Hearn revealed that he received an unexpected phone call from Fury’s US promoter, Bob Arum, recently.

“We’ve just got to decide what type of fight we want for July. Do we go straight into a massive fight now? Bob Arum phoned me the other day, which was quite a surprise. Just talking about AJ Fury, he said what are you thinking?

“And I said I don’t know really. We’re all up for discussing the fight. I don’t think there’s going to be a major site fee in July, but we’re still willing to look at the numbers, or if you want to wait and do it later in the year we’re up for that too. Who knows what’s gonna happen with Usyk, with Wilder. We’re gonna have to see. But AJ’s gonna fight in July, 100%.”

Source Punch Ng

Posted April 7, 2023

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