Boxing Hall of Famer George Foreman questioned Anthony Joshua’s identity and will after watching him lose to Oleksandr Usyk.
United Kingdom’s Anthony Joshua has lost his WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight belts after being dominated by Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk in Tottenham on Saturday.
As expected, boxing personalities weighed in on Joshua’s underwhelming performance and among them was former world heavyweight champion George Foreman.
On his official Twitter account, Foreman pondered who the was the person in front of Usyk during the match as the Joshua he has known was a far better fighter than that.
“Saw the Joshua/Usyk fight: AJ seemed afraid? He lost his identity,” Foreman wrote. “(Should I be cautious (go 12) attack with my power?) Usyk typical southpaw “if you won’t hit me I’ll be award and hit you” something’s wrong [you’re] not AJ.”
“He took his punishments,” he continued. “Who are you AJ?”
Looking back at the fight, there was no denying that Usyk did a tremendous job in systematically outpointing Joshua almost the entire 12 rounds to deserve a unanimous decision win.
AJ’s promoter and Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn, on the other hand, has already vowed to push for a quick rematch.
“It's straight back into the fire and [Joshua] he will want to go straight back into that rematch,” Hearn told Sky Sports. “He will be an underdog in the rematch this time after that tonight, but that's what he does.”
“It was a tough fight, a gruelling fight,” he added. “He's not quite talking the way you would expect him to talk at the moment. Devastated. He's already talking about training again.