Foriegn

Joshua dares to smash Usyk’s head in rematch

Anthony Joshua has pledged to rediscover the aggressive side of his boxing when he faces Oleksandr Usyk in tomorrow’s rematch.

“I wanted to outbox my opponent, whether it was Usyk or anyone else, which was the mindset [in the first fight]. I wanted to outbox my opponent and on Saturday I want to smash my opponent,” Joshua told Sky Sports News.

“That’s just the mindset now.”

Joshua acknowledges an action-packed, destructive approach had been key for so much of the early success in his career.

“I was amateur for three and a half years and I done a lot in that time and I asked myself how? It wasn’t down to the skill element, because I was outclassed in terms of skill and experience by a lot of my competitors on the world scene, but that aggression,” he reflected.

“That will was something that couldn’t be denied. Then as you get more experience you try to develop as a rounded athlete. But ultimately, you can’t take your eye off the factor of what got you to where you are which is, as you said, that aggressiveness.”

In that sense, Joshua will bring back his old self for this fight with Usyk.

“It’s never really been lost. The path is always there. It’s not like I’m trying to rediscover a path. I always understand where that is. I just tried to be more elusive and add more strings to my bow,” he said.

Against Usyk this time around, Joshua promises to be back with a vengeance.

Victory in this rematch would see Joshua recover the WBO, WBA and IBF titles he lost to Usyk in September. But even then he would not consider himself the best heavyweight in the world, not without fighting Tyson Fury.

“Unless he’s 100 per cent retired, you’ve got to beat Fury as well.”

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