Anthony Joshua felt like he was beating Oleksandr Usyk in their rematch, despite losing comfortably to the Ukrainian.
The Brit entered the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as the unified heavyweight champion with a relatively comfortable favourite tag over mandatory challenger Usyk. He had just seen an undisputed fight with Tyson Fury fall apart at the 11th hour due to a legal issue with Deontay Wilder, and was expected to take care of the Ukrainian before moving on to fight for all the belts.
But Joshua showed up with the wrong game-plan, and it quickly became apparent that Usyk was in control of the contest. That was to everybody bar Joshua and his corner, however, who felt he was heading towards retaining his belts.
His corner came in for criticism after the bout, with some noting that one of his coaches was telling him his performance was "brilliant" after a round he had certainly lost. And he has swapped out head trainer Rob McCracken for American Robert Garcia in an effort to change things up for the rematch on August 20 in Saudi Arabia.
“I swear I thought I was looking like Muhammad Ali in there," he told media members in London yesterday at a press conference promoting their second meeting. "I can show you sparring footage where I’m on the ropes leaning.
“Throughout the fight I thought I was winning but at that stage [by the 12th round] I kind of knew it was close. I thought at that stage I was well in the fight because it didn’t seem like there was any real communication as to where I’m at; like ‘you’re losing this fight… you’re down by two rounds’. I didn’t get that.
“I’m not blaming anyone by saying that but I didn’t get any impression that I was losing the fight. I thought we were well in it. That’s why when they announced the name I was kind of like ‘huh?’ It was all just ‘that’s it, keep on going’. So I was jabbing and jabbing. It was hard to accept afterwards. Now when I watch it back I think he won by three rounds, that’s probably from the 9th onwards.”
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Joshua was cornered by McCracken, with whom he has worked since his days as an amateur in the Olympics. He also had Angel Fernandez and Joby Clayton involved, whom he has kept as part of a new team led by Garcia.
He has moved his camp from Sheffield to London, where Garcia is putting him through his paces ahead of the rematch. And Joshua believes that a new corner will work wonders for him after the disarray he felt during the first fight.
“There was a lot going on in the corner and that didn’t help," he added. "A corner is like a pitstop, you’ve got probably 55 seconds in total to calm down, hydrate, simple instructions. Too many voices at once is definitely not good for anybody, not just me. It wasn’t like ‘take the fight to this f***** , listen you’re losing the fight’, no."
