Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
AJ KOS MUM FROM WLAD CLASH
Joshua: A fight is not a place where you want to see your kid
ANTHONY JOSHUA has banned his mum from Saturday’s showdown with Wladimir Klitschko. Yeta Odusanya will not be one of the 90,000 inside Wembley. Instead she will be a couple of miles away at home in north London on the strict orders of the unbeaten IBF heavyweight champ. Joshua has not let his mum be at a fight since he won Olympic gold at London 2012 and feels it could be too much of a distraction to have her ringside, worrying about him. His dad, Robert, will be there, but Yeta will wait at home for a phone call telling her the fight is over. “My old man will be there again, but I don’t really let my mum come to my fights,” said Joshua, 27. “I’ve banned her. It’s not a place where you want to see your kid, I don’t think, at a fight. My dad can watch it, but not my mum. “She is confident enough in me to watch, but I would rather she not be there. One of my cousins will call her after the fight. She enjoys it all, though, and gets a few freebies.” Joshua has worked on a game plan to defeat Klitschko, but says he cannot simply copy the awkward, switch-hitting style Tyson Fury used when he dethroned the Ukrainian in Dusseldorf in November 2015. Joshua’s tactics will be based on his speed and power. He also refuses to read too much into his 41-year-old opponent’s display that night, when he looked shot, and is preparing for Klitschko at his best. “I haven’t watched the Fury fight much,” he said. “Because it was the most recent one, it’s very relevant, but Fury is completely different to me. I can’t box the way Fury boxed and expect it to be as simple as that for me. I just look at little parts of it, not the whole thing. “Klitschko just didn’t show up in that fight. A lot of great fighters have made mistakes and come back, so I’m expecting the best Klitschko. “I’m just worried about what I can do. Everyone is different when you fight them. I’m going to worry about myself and how I’m feeling. Am I confident? As long as I tick my boxes, I know I’m in a good place.”