Is Anthony Joshua a great modern-day fighter who could compete in any era? This week, the WBA/IBF/WBO heavyweight champ posted a couple of photos of himself on social media, with the above words tagged in.
Very quickly, rival heavyweight champion Tyson Fury blasted his countryman with a humorous tweet of his own.
“That’s you out of the window then, chump!” Fury wrote in response. “A great? My arse! You got KTFO by a chubby kid who had three weeks’ notice. You are great at looking good in pics. I must say whit whooo xxx.”
Fury was, of course, referring to the stoppage loss Joshua suffered at the hands of Andy Ruiz in New York in June of 2019, this Joshua’s sole pro loss.
Fury will never let Joshua forget about that stoppage defeat, even if AJ came back and avenged it in his very next fight (Ruiz turning up in a disgraceful physical condition in the rematch in Saudi Arabia).
The drum is, of course, being beaten for the massive Fury-Joshua showdown, with both fighters looking to gain an edge anywhere and everywhere they can prior to it taking place. Fury will do his utmost to get into Joshua’s head and drain him of self-confidence.
These tactics worked on Wladimir Klitschko, and Fury certainly rattled Deontay Wilder ahead of their second fight.
Can Fury now get to AJ with the psychological stuff, or is Joshua stronger upstairs than Fury perhaps thinks? The fight – actually two fights – is hopefully going to take place around May, and there isn’t a fight fan who doesn’t want to see this rivalry settled once and for all.
Fury can be expected to be absolutely relentless with the taunts and the insults right up until the two giants step foot in the ring (a ring very possibly erected in Saudi Arabia, or maybe Singapore, but almost certainly not in the UK, unfortunately).
Fury is, of course, very funny at times, but he is all business in the ring, as is Joshua. Who will have the last laugh when fight night finally comes?
