CHEEKY Oleksandr Usyk showed his fun side by jokingly switching up his stance after Anthony Joshua’s dig.
The pair are making their final preparations for Saturday night’s rematch in Saudi Arabia.
Usyk, 35, claimed victory back in September as he outclassed his British opponent.
But AJ, 32, reckons he would have “smoked” the Ukrainian if he was not a southpaw.
So in response, Usyk bounced around the ring in training deliberately taking up an orthodox, right-handed position.
The current WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight world champ was clearly enjoying playing up to the cameras in the witty jibe – and ramping up the mind games.
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And his confidence is sky high as he prepares to defend his belts for the first time in the top division.
Joshua said in the build-up to fight night: “Fighting a leftie is a nightmare and he is a good one as well.
“He is good — but if he was an orthodox fighter I’d have smoked him, 100 per cent.
“But with this leftie nonsense it’s just different, they set you up differently.
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“If you are a good leftie you have a good chance of making it in boxing, I reckon.”
Joshua and Usyk will step back into the ring late on Saturday evening in Jeddah – with Usyk returning to his normal southpaw set-up.
The Watford star knows he needs to be at his best and return to winning ways.
Should he lose, that would make it three defeats in his last five fights and could threaten his future career.
However, training partner and good pal Lawrence Okolie reckons he can become a three-time heavyweight champion if he sticks to the secret game plan he’s been honing for the last eight months.
The WBO cruiserweight champion told SunSport: “Some of those adjustments, which I don’t want to go too much into, are showing a bit in the little techniques that he’s been working on in training with me.
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“I’m obviously an almost opposite style to Usyk, so it’s hard to deal with when he would try those techniques with me.
“But it [his most recent training with AJ] was good and I look forward to them clashing again and that’s it.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
