Fighters are always their own worst critics and Anthony Joshua is no exception.
Despite delivering a brutal sixth-round knockout to beat Jake Paul—and break his jaw in two places—the former heavyweight champion wasn’t satisfied with his performance Friday. While it was his first fight back in over a year and he was returning from a knockout loss of his own to Daniel Dubois, Joshua saw lot of shortcomings in the fight he needs to fix moving forward.
“No, I needed to do better,” Joshua said about his performance at the post-fight press conference. “It’s a win but it’s not a success. I think my coach expects more from me and I expect more from myself. But what can we do? We can’t reverse the clocks. We have to move forward. I have to put that in the past now.
“After today, you might see a bit of social media, trying to lap up all of the algorithm attention but for me, it’s in the past. I can’t live off of that win. I’ve got a lot of improving I need to do. I’m not happy.”
Joshua admitted there was a lot riding on his fight on Friday, not only because he was returning from a loss but also due to the fact that he was heavily favored to win over an opponent who just started boxing a few years ago.
While he’s had over 10 professional fights, Paul had never faced anywhere near the same level of competition as Joshua, so the British star was expected to win. He still had to go out and deliver.
“There was a lot riding on this fight,” Joshua said. “A lot of pressure. A lot of expectations. I had to perform. A lot of people doubt me. A lot of people don’t respect me. There’s a lot of pressure. I had boxing on my back today and that was what it was really.
“I took Jake as serious as I needed to but most importantly, I take myself as serious as I need to. I respect myself. I respect boxing. I know what it takes to get in the ring. You have to be prepared. One slip up could cost you in that ring. Credit to Jake.”
Joshua continuously took the high road when addressing Paul as an opponent while acknowledging that he wouldn’t expect the same if the fight hadn’t gone his way.
“If he would have beaten me, he would bash me,” Joshua said about Paul “You know that right? Imagine him up here now, they would have torn me and Eddie [Hearn] apart. But I’m not going to do that to Jake. I’m going to give him the credit.
“But if he wants to stay at the top level at heavyweight, he needs to work harder because it’s very difficult. It’s a very difficult division to reign in.”
Immediately after the fight, Paul stated his plan to move down and compete at cruiserweight rather than take another fight at heavyweight.
That said, Joshua believes he may want to travel even further down when it comes to his future aspirations and perhaps he should revisit potential fights against much smaller opposition rather than taking on another elite heavyweight.
“Jake has spirit,” Joshua said. “He has some heart. He tried his best and I take my hat off to him because No. 1, a lot of fighters haven’t got in the ring with me and Jake did and secondly even when he got knocked down, he kept on trying to get up and I take my hat off to him.
“So America, I think you have someone who could potentially — if he still has the heart for it — come back again, dust the dust off his shoulder and come again and maybe sell out this center sometime in 2026. Maybe against a Gervonta Davis, a Ryan Garcia, who knows.”
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