‘Joshua wants another shot at heavyweight title before retirement’

Anthony Joshua is looking to regain the world heavyweight title one more time before considering retiring from the sport.

This was revealed by British boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, who also said that Joshua had only two or three fights left before he retires.

The Nigerian-born boxer has secured 28 victories in his 32 professional bouts, with 25 coming by knockout.

Speaking to talkSPORTS, Hearn shared Joshua’s ambition to take on top-tier opponents before hanging up his gloves.

“The plan and the goal for Anthony Joshua, always, from now to the moment he retires, is to try and win the World Heavyweight Championship, to try and become a three-time World Heavyweight Champion,” Hearn stated

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“So, of course, the other fight, which we know at the moment is not available, is Tyson Fury, he wanted that fight. But, if you said to AJ, ‘what do you want to do most next?’ He would say, ‘I want to fight the winner of Dubois/Parker. I want another shot at a World Heavyweight title.’

“That’s a natural thing. You know, you’ve got [Martin] Bakole, you’ve got [Deontay] Wilder, you’ve got the winner of [Agit] Kabayel against [Zhilei] Zhang. They’re all possible fights, but, you know, you keep hearing about, ‘oh, AJ won’t fight this guy, won’t fight that guy.’ Come on, look at his resume.

“Like, when he boxed Oleksandr Usyk, he gave Usyk the shot at the World Heavyweight Championship. And everyone said to me, ‘oh, don’t fight Usyk, don’t fight Usyk.’ It’s never my say. AJ wants to fight the best, he wants to challenge himself, and he wants to try and become undisputed, so he had to take care of his mandatory.

“He gave Usyk the shot at the kingdom. And he beat AJ, and then everyone went, ‘whatever you do, don’t rematch Usyk.’ And he rematched Usyk. You know, when he got stopped by Andy Ruiz, everyone went, ‘whoa, his confidence is shot to pieces, do not go straight back in with Andy Ruiz.’ He went straight back in with Andy Ruiz.

“There’s no doubt in AJ’s mind about who he’s fighting, and he will step back in the ring with Dubois at any moment, because he wants the gold, and we’ve probably only got another year left. Two fights, three fights max.

“So at this stage, it’s not like, ‘oh, how do we have a couple of easy fights to end a career?’ It’s like, excuse my French, I won’t say the word, but it’s like [s***] or bust.

“You know? It’s like, we’ve got nothing to preserve, we’ve got nothing to worry about, we’ve got nothing to hold on to. We’ve got nothing, other than the biggest draw in the division.”

The post ‘Joshua wants another shot at heavyweight title before retirement’ appeared first on Latest Nigeria News | Top Stories from Ripples Nigeria.

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