ANTHONY JOSHUA is back touring America looking for a new trainer.
The 33-year-old heavyweight ace made a similar trip after losing to Oleksandr Usyk for the first time, in September 2021, and settled on Robert Garcia.
But that relationship ended after just one bout – the August rematch loss to the Ukrainian king in Saudi Arabia.
So Joshua is back trialling coaches for his latest rebuild.
Watford’s London 2012 Olympic legend missed friend and mentor Derek Chisora’s world title loss to Tyson Fury on December 3 as he flew out to San Francisco at the end of November.
There he met and worked with brilliant defensive teacher Virgil Hunter, the mastermind behind Andre Ward’s undefeated success and the current coach to AJ’s stablemates Joshua Buatsi and Souleymane Cissokho.
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The two-time WBA, IBF and WBO champ then moved on to Dallas, Texas where he auditioned Derrick James for a crack at his corner.
James trains unified welterweight champion Errol Spence Jr and undisputed super-welterweight boss Jermell Charlo in the States.
Garcia explained in the wake of the Usyk loss that he had asked AJ to move his camp to his California gym to get away from all his domestic distractions – and train alongside his world champions like Bam Rodriguez – but Joshua refused.
AJ showed a huge improvement in that fight but nothing seemed completely settled with Garcia in the build-up, so a split has come as no surprise.
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Promoter Eddie Hearn insisted in October that AJ was definitely returning to the ring on December 17 – only for that plan to be dashed.
And now the Matchroom boss is claiming that early April is when we will see his star attraction back shining in the ring.
While on his trip the former champ also met with James McNair, one of the masterminds behind Floyd Mayweather’s incredible business career and TMT brand.
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
