Anthony Joshua will change up his gloves for his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk tomorrow night in another step to differentiate from their first fight.
The Brit was comfortably beaten over 12 rounds by his rival at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London back in September, while wearing Rival gloves. And his new trainer Robert Garcia has explained that he is now changing to Grant ones for the rematch, another in a long line of switches he has made for his latest world heavyweight title effort.
Joshua entered the first fight as favourite, but attempted to out-box Usyk, a famously technical fighter, and was relieved of his unified WBA, WBO and IBF world titles as a result. Now, he has a new camp, with a host of new trainers and is planning on coming out with a very different outcome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
"Anthony will be wearing Grant," Garcia told ID Boxing yesterda y. "We've been training with them, I brought in Everlast also, I brought in some Adidas gloves. We used a few gloves and he feels comfortable with the Grant, I never force my fighters to wear whatever I want them to wear, it's what they feel comfortable in.
"Most of my fighters wear the Everlast MX, it's a very comfortable glove and it's a puncher's glove. Most of my fighters are punchers so they love wearing that glove, but Anthony feels comfortable wearing a Grant which is also very comfortable and the power is there so if he lands that good shot I know he will hurt him.'
Usyk and Joshua have both made changes ahead of the bout, although generally the champion's have been less sweeping. He appears to be heavier than their first go around, although Amir Khan's claims that he has put on 15kg seem fanciful, while he has also been forced to move his training camp to Dubai due to the war in Ukraine.
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Meanwhile, Joshua moved his camp from Sheffield to London before heading to Jeddah over a month early in order to get acclimatised to the extreme heat of summer in the Middle East. He has previous experience competing in Saudi Arabia after a world title loss, defeating Andy Ruiz Jr in an immediate rematch in December 2019.
But Saturday night will prove a very different test against a particularly motivated Usyk. Back in 2019, Ruiz Jr defeated Joshua in June of 2019, but by the time their December rematch came around he appeared to be in poor shape and the Brit ultimately had a relatively handy night at the office in winning back the belts.
This time, Usyk looks as focused as ever, and with Ukraine's support on his back amid chaos in his home country, he has been named favourite by oddsmakers. Joshua hasn't entered as an underdog in years, but faces a tough test this weekend against the undefeated former cruiserweight champion.
