ANTHONY JOSHUA has revealed his brutal stoppage of Dillian Whyte is the favourite knockout of his career.
The unified heavyweight champion locked horns with his old amateur rival in December 2015 in a battle of unbeaten prospects.
Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte went toe-to-toe in December 2015Credit: Reuters
Anthony Joshua lands a nasty uppercut on Dillian WhyteCredit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
Joshua avenged his amateur defeat to The Body Snatcher with a vicious seventh-round KO win at London’s O2 Arena, a victory which propelled him into world title contention.
And the win was made even sweeter by all the trash talk he had to endure from Whyte before they shared the ring in a professional capacity.
Joshua told Sporting News Australia: “The favourite knockout that stands out for me? Probably, I go back to the Dillian one. Sweet.
“Because that was like, you know… when I first started boxing I was just in Finchley.
“And you hear little things where the coaches are like, ‘Oh, this geezer. If he has a little sneeze he’ll pull out of the fight and say he’s got the flu. He’s not a serious guy’, And this and that.
“So when I fought Dillian, I had been training [but] they called me on Thursday night and said me, ‘Do you want to fight [on] Friday?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, cool, let’s fight.’
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“So imagine I had been training every day. [But] in a fight, you have to have your peak time and your deload time so you’re ready and you recover.
“So when I fought Dillian, he was like a world championship kickboxer, I trained until Thursday. It was a good fight, he beat me. Respect to you, well done.
“The when I was going through this boxing thing as an amateur, he was always talking rubbish on the internet.
“Like, ‘When you turn pro, I’m going to smoke you.’ This, that and that. And I’ve never been one to get on to the internet wars.
“So that fight was now like, ‘All of that internet stuff you’ve been talking, now you’re facing the real one.’ And then it was like north London, south London, Watford, south London.
“It was just a whole saga in London where it was just like, ‘Let’s see who the best of the best is.’
Anthony Joshua knocked Dillian Whyte out coldCredit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
“And it was kind of like that [Joe] Joyce and [Daniel] Dubois fight. You know that who is going to go on and be the next one. And that knockout just cemented [it for me].
“If you would’ve lumped £100 on this kid is going to go on an be a world champion, that would’ve been a short bet because I feel like that uppercut was the cement to where we was about to go.”
Whyte, who is currently gearing up for a crucial rematch with Alexander Povetkin, is one of only two boxers to drag Joshua into a trash-talking match.
AJ told Sports Illustrated: “The only times you’ve seen me talking recklessly is against Dillian Whyte and Jarrell Miller.
“Other than that I’m an ambassador of the sport. I’m trying to be clean, representing my sponsorships, represent DAZN properly, I try to stay away from the typical stereotype of a heavyweight boxer.
“It’s difficult but I have it in me to fire up and talk recklessly when needed.”
Joshua, 32, is currently preparing for a multi-million-pound heavyweight title unification fight with Tyson Fury.
Negotiations over the biggest fight in the history of British boxing are ongoing and both parties are expecting to finalise an agreement in the coming weeks.
Tyson Fury warns Anthony Joshua that fighting him is like wrestling a T-Rex
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
