Anthony Joshua expects a much better showing from Errol Spence Jr. in a potential rematch with Terence Crawford.

Spence suffered his first career defeat after a one-sided ninth-round TKO defeat to Crawford in their welterweight title unification clash late last month.

The manner of the defeat was especially shocking as a bloodied Spence was virtually outclassed from start to finish with Crawford even scoring three knockdowns during the contest.

It's led to many observers urging him not to go for an immediate rematch — due to his rematch clause — while others have even gone as far as telling him to retire from the sport.

However, Joshua certainly doesn't believe that.

He feels the Errol Spence he saw in the fight was not the one he's become accustomed to watching. And so, with the right adjustments in training camp, “AJ” feels Spence will fare much better in a second fight with Crawford.

“That’s not the Errol we know,” Joshua said in a conference call with reporters (via Boxing Scene). “He’ll be back better. If you look at it for what it is—and I rate Terence Crawford before this fight, Terence is an elite fighter, so is Errol. Now, Errol just wasn’t—I know that wasn’t the guy I watched many a time before. I didn’t see everything in training camp because we had different times, but I did see him working hard.

“But just from a performance point of view, I think they should have confidence in themselves knowing in the rematch if they get whatever happened in the training camp which was going wrong, if they get it right, I think they’ll give Bud a much tougher fight. Errol didn’t land on his back. He wasn’t knocked out on his back. He got stopped on his feet. So run it back and start again. I think they should definitely go again. I don’t think he should retire.”

It should be noted that there is a bit of bias from Joshua's side as both him and Spence share the same boxing trainer in Derrick James.

However, Joshua has bigger things to worry about such as who he'll be facing this weekend after original opponent Dillian Whyte was ruled out after adverse findings came back from his drug test.