I Will Smash Usyk, Says Joshua

Anthony Joshua has promised to bring back the aggression into his boxing when he faces off against Oleksandr Usyk in their title rematch on Saturday.

Joshua admitted that last September when they fought, the mindset was to outbox his opponents, whoever it was, and now, he is fully focused on “smashing.”

“I wanted to outbox my opponent, whether it was Usyk or anyone else; that was the mindset (in the first fight). I wanted to outbox my opponent and on Saturday I want to smash my opponent,” Joshua told Sky Sports News.

“That’s just the mindset now.”

He also acknowledged that a high intensity, destructive approach had been a key factor for so much of the early successes in his career.

“I was amateur for three and a half years and I done a lot in that time and I asked myself how? It wasn’t down to the skill element, because I was outclassed in terms of skill and experience by a lot of my competitors on the world scene, but that aggression,” he said.

Joshua promises to be back with a vengeance against Usyk this time.

Victory in this rematch would see Joshua recover the WBO, WBA and IBF titles he lost to Usyk in September. But even then he would not consider himself the best heavyweight in the world, not without fighting Tyson Fury.

“Unless he’s 100 per cent retired, you’ve got to beat Fury as well,” Joshua told Sky Sports News.