Anthony Joshua has been dumping his sparring partners on the canvas ahead of his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.
That's according to his camp manager David 'KD' Ghansa, who insists Joshua has gone through 13 sparring partners in camp for his heavyweight world title challenge. He has been training mostly in silence, making rare appearances in public ahead of the huge unified title bout with Usyk in Saudi Arabia, which takes place on Saturday night.
Joshua immediately pushed for a rematch with Usyk after losing his belts to the Ukrainian last September, and has finally been granted his contractually obligated fight. The bout was delayed for almost a year due to first issues surrounding the war in Ukraine, but the pair are now just days away from a second fight.
"It's been tough for him," Ghansa explained during an interview with Sky Sports. "We've probably brought in a minimum of 13 sparring partners for this camp. First, they've got to be left-handed, we needed southpaws. Then We went for a wide range of strong guys, light guys, movers, stand and traders. We just had a variety of everything.
"So him going through the rounds, some days it was one man in, one man out, who's surviving? People were hitting the canvas. The camp has been crazy. People were hitting the canvas, I'm not going to hide it. They came to get paid for that and it's been happening. I'm not going to hide it."
Joshua was comprehensively beaten in the first meeting, despite entering the fight as champion and a considerable favourite. And he has switched up major parts of his camp leading into the rematch, hoping to become a rare three-time unified heavyweight champion.
He ditched long-time head coach Rob McCracken in favour of Robert Garcia, and moved his training base from Sheffield to London. And he has finished out his camp in Jeddah where the fight is taking place in considerably hotter temperatures than his London base.
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The Brit has lost his belts before; taking an embarrassing stoppage defeat to Andy Ruiz Jr in the summer of 2019 during his American debut. But he immediately took a rematch, in Saudi Arabia, where he comfortably beat the American and became a two-time heavyweight champion.
He defended the belts once after that rematch, taking a major pay-cut to fight in front of a tiny crowd at Wembley Arena against Kubrat Pulev in December 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. He had been set to face Tyson Fury in a massive undisputed clash the following summer, with a date and venue booked, but contractual issues cost them the bout at the eleventh hour.
Instead, he was ordered to face his WBO mandatory Usyk, while Fury had to have a trilogy fight with Deontay Wilder. Joshua lost his belts to the Ukrainian, while Fury defended his title against Wilder before beating mandatory challenger Dillian Whyte in April and claiming to retire.
