David Haye has instructed Anthony Joshua to steer clear of a ring meeting with Tyson Fury and rematch Dillian Whyte instead.
Joshua laboured to a points victory over Jermaine Franklin in his heavyweight comeback fight at London's O2 arena on Saturday night as he looked to regain momentum. Many expected 'AJ' to blast the American out of the ring, but the contender was rugged and resilient which saw him reach the final bell.
After the fight Joshua was urged to call out Fury by the raucous home crowd and he obliged, insisting that he was open to negotiations for a showdown with the WBC title on the line. However former world champion Haye believes a second meeting with Whyte would be a better next step given his performance on home turf.
“I want to see him in with Dillian next. That’s not the performance to go in against Tyson Fury next," Haye told iFL TV when assessing Joshua's next options after his recent win. "If he went out and blitzed him in a couple of rounds, then okay. But he needs a better performance than that to go in against Tyson, in my opinion.
“It didn’t look like he went for the knockout in any of the rounds. He was just happy to win each round clearly. I wanted him to really put it on this little guy and pin him up against the ropes. I’d like to see him against Dillian, where we know it’s going to be fireworks. That’s a high profile fight that’ll get everyone’s juices flowing, then the winner of that can look at Fury. But Fury’s looking at fighting Usyk anyway – or is he?"
Joshua was set to face Fury late last year after his loss to Usyk but negotiations collapsed with the challenger missing the deadline imposed by the 'Gypsy King' to sign the contract. It is widely recognised that the former Olympian will go into the showdown as underdog now given his recent losses, but he will have new hope under trainer Derrick James.
Do you think Anthony Joshua should fight Tyson Fury? Let us know in the comments section below
It is likely that Joshua will instead choose to rebuild and pursue another fight before any clash with Fury which could also include a meeting with IBF mandatory challenger Filip Hrgovic. Despite many suggesting he needs to wait before pursuing Fury, the 33-year-old urged his rival to stop talking and get in touch over settling the scores.
He said: “Save all that s***. If we’ll f***ing fight, let’s go. Shut the f*** up and that’s just how I feel because I got to save my energy for the fight. I’ll be real, I’ll be real. I respect the man. He’s achieved a lot. I just feel I don’t need to trash talk, verbally trash talk someone to make myself feel better. You are not going beat Tyson Fury in a verbal contest."
