Anthony Joshua has attempted to explain the strategy he used against Oleksandr Usyk when the pair went head-to-head last month.
It appeared that the then-champion had tried to score a victory by outboxing his more technical opponent, one who had honed his skills on his way to becoming the undisputed cruiserweight champion.
Usyk was declared the victor after 12 rounds in September, and Joshua immediately exercised his rematch clause.
Many observed that Joshua should have used his strength and size advantages to overwhelm his opponent, but instead he was largely on the back foot.
Speaking to IFL TV, Joshua explained that: “I’m a twelve round fighter and you saw in the other fight [Fury vs Wilder] a few weeks after that after two or three rounds the energy was depleted."
“It’s not really, what I thought, the right way of boxing. I started working on different elements of my boxing and boxing the same in round one as round twelve, learning to slip and roll shots better etc.”
Joshua admitted that things did not go exactly to plan.
“The obvious thing was to go out there and use a lot of my natural ability, but after a while in my career I started thinking that I want to scrap what I can naturally do and improve certain areas that I was weaker on,” he said.
“It’s definitely not lost time - I learned different things, the importance of the jab, the importance of the push away and the feint, the difference between counter-punching and counter attacking… I just divulged myself in the sweet science of boxing."
“But with that fight, it’s clear that styles make fights, and I adopted the wrong style. That’s not to say next time I’ll go out there and swing like a mad man, but I have certain strengths that will cause him and a lot of other people a lot of problems.”
“Remember that Usyk was a heavyweight from the WSP time and dropped down to cruiserweight. He probably realized that he’s one of the smaller heavyweights at that time and he’s built himself up. He had about 400 amateur fights and he’s seen people try and rough him up millions of times so just to have that one style is silly. I have one thing on my mind and that’s war, that’s murder - just to go out there and hurt the guy and take his soul to the point where he wants to give up. That’s what boxing’s about."
“I’ve learned that if you hit people constantly and keep on applying the same amount of pressure then they will realize you are not going anywhere and that you’re here to stay. That’s all I have in my mind at the minute - that one track and to stay on course and take this guy to places he doesn’t want to go."