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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Will Freeman

Anthony Joshua told to flirt with 'disqualification' in order to win Oleksandr Usyk fight

With Anthony Joshua hoping to avenge his September defeat by Oleksandry Usyk in their rematch later this month, David Haye has said that Joshua must bring more physicality to the point where he may risk disqualification.

Joshua will have his rematch against Usyk at the Jeddah Super Dome in Saudi Arabia on August 20 and will be hoping for a better performance than the one which saw him relinquish his world titles following a unanimous decision defeat to Usyk at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last year.

Joshua is a much larger fighter than the former cruiserweight Usyk and has been urged by former world champion David Haye to use his size advantage to beat the Ukrainian. Joshua is 6 foot 6, three inches taller than Usyk who is the the same height as former WBA champion Haye who is also 6 foot 3.

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Haye was speaking to the Telegraph's Gareth A Davies when he made the claim that Joshua should push the rules to their limit with the use of his body in the rematch. Speaking about who he thought would win and how, Haye explained: “I’m going to go with Anthony Joshua again," Haye said. "I went with him in a big way in the first fight.

"He didn’t fight in the manner which I thought he was going to that I think would have given him the best chance of winning. He applied probably the worst tactics you could do against a southpaw. Gave him range, was respectful inside, in close. There was no warnings from the ref about deducting points because he never imposed himself. I think he’s [Joshua] watched it back and knows what he needs to do.

"He’s got a good team who’s gonna drill it into him that this is not a boxing match, this has got to be a dog fight from the first bell. He should be this close to getting a point deducted or disqualified, that’s how physical he needs to be because he’s a specimen like no other in the heavyweight division.”

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