Anthony Joshua ‘wasn’t prepared enough’ for Oleksandr Usyk as mistake pointed out

Shawn Porter has affirmed that Anthony Joshua “was prepared but not prepared enough” for his fight with Oleksandr Usyk last weekend. The former two-time welterweight world champion believes AJ should have chased the knockout in the opening rounds and emptied the gas tank early doors to give himself the best chance of winning.

Speaking to Boxing Scene, he said: “You could see Joshua was prepared but not prepared enough. He had a big ninth round and I felt like he should have opened the fight like that ninth round. He should have emptied the tank early and let the fight be what it was going to be.

“He should have gone for the knockout early, put some real serious pressure on Usyk early and if anything you take something out of your opponent. Yeah, you’re taking something out of yourself but you’re taking something out of your opponent as well. So, neither here nor there, hindsight is twenty-twenty, Usyk is the man. He’s the man at heavyweight now.”

Ahead of his second fight with the Ukrainian, Joshua axed long-time trainer Rob McCracken and replaced him with legendary coach Robert Garcia who joined Angel Fernandez in heading up the camp.

“So, he should be better since after that. The experience of that fight along with the experience of working with Robert before and after that fight, he should be better.”

When asked about whom he would like to see Joshua face next, Porter stated that a showdown against Deontay Wilder is a ‘certain’ fight: “I expect Wilder to get past Helenius, and I think that there are certain fights in the boxing game that just make sense and they should make money no matter what, that’s one of them [Joshua vs Wilder]. I favour Wilder.

“I expect Joshua to get down and dig to the body the way that he did in the fight with Usyk. I was pleasantly surprised about that. He’s got to be able to do that against Wilder. I didn’t think he’d be able to adopt that so quickly and he did, I was happy to see that.”