ANTHONY JOSHUA will have to go on the “offensive” against Oleksandr Usyk if he’s to have any hope of winning their high-stakes rematch.
The Watford warrior will bid to become a three-time heavyweight champion in his make-or-break Saudi showdown with the undefeated Ukranian on Saturday week.
A tentative AJ was outboxed by the slick southpaw in their Tottenham tussle last September, a scenario Brit rival Joe Joyce can foresee playing out again if he doesn’t put his foot on the gas.
He told Sky Sports: “Unless Joshua can really change his style and also become an offensive fighter again.
“When we were on the GB squad I always used to like going to toe to toe with him, that used to be fun.
“But then all of a sudden he was kind of bit more [on the] back foot.
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“[Against Usyk] he seemed very tidy in his technique and his footwork and everything. But he was trying to outbox Usyk.
“Maybe it was Usyk that was keeping him away. But he seemed very clinical.
“He could have roughed him up a bit more inside and took a few chances with pot shots.”
Joyce reckons his former sparring partner needs to implement aspects of his old aggressive style to win the desert dust-up.
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He recalled: “There was a stage especially early where we were going toe to toe all the time
“Then it got to a point, kind of when he turned pro he started to be a bit more on the back foot and not really willing to engage.
“Especially with the (Andy) Ruiz Jr rematch he probably went into that defensive on the back foot [mode].
“[He] was kind of scared to engage. I guess rightly so because he must have seen the shadow of Ruiz putting him down.
“Even (Wladimir) Klitschko put him down and he was in trouble for a whole round when they fought.
“Klitschko, if he’d been more an offensive fighter, he could have taken him out there.”
Joshua has brought in multiple-time world champion coach Robert Garcia to cook up an aggressive game plan for the Saudi showdown.
But Joyce believes it’ll take more than brute force for AJ to wrestle the titles back from the undefeated Usyk.
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He said: “[Usyk] already knew what to do in the first fight, he went straight to work. So this fight he’s already beaten him.
“So he knows exactly what to do again. He’s probably three, four moves ahead of him. “So it’s a tough one.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
