I HAVE TO GET EVEN…
Joshua ready to put the heat on Ruiz and atone for shocker
RATHER than get mad at his shock KO by Andy Ruiz, Anthony Joshua wants to get even.
Joshua did not rage and look for excuses or scapegoats in the wake of losing his world heavyweight titles to Ruiz in New York.
He accepted he was to blame and has spent the three months since analysing how to atone when they rematch in the Clash on the Dunes in Saudi Arabia on December 7.
“I always say it’s not good to change in the face of a slip-up or something,” said the former champion. “Some people may change but, for me, I thought, ‘deal with it like a man’. Anything that happens to me is down to me.
“You know, sometimes you can blame your mates, blame your friends for stupid stuff. But I’ve only got myself to blame.
“That’s just the code I grew up with. So the reason I don’t get angry is because if you go for something, you have got to go through everything, good or bad.
“We don’t get upset. We figure out the solution, not ‘it’s a problem, I’m p **** d, I’m angry’.”
Joshua, 29, remained in the city for a week after his defeat at Madison Square Garden, mainly playing chess with his friends and family as he digested his seven-round stoppage.
He also visited Nigeria for the first time since he went to school there 17 years ago, travelling to the ghettos and all this helped give him perspective.
Joshua knows he blundered by trying to finish Ruiz off when he floored him in the third round, only to leave himself open to a right hook from the Mexican, which decked him and turned the fight.
“He wasn’t cooked yet, he was still raw,” said Joshua ruefully.
Speaking yesterday in London in the final stop of their three-city media tour, which took in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday and New York on Thursday, Joshua is adamant he can reclaim his WBA Super, IBF and WBO belts in the groundbreaking fight in Diriyah.
“It was a bump, a loss, a blip,” he said. “It’s more about myself, I have to change. I’m looking at myself in the mirror and saying I know I’m better than that.
“Andy is still the same person. He will come game and I’ve got to change some bibs and bobs.
“I was 50 per cent of the way towards getting a win, I just got caught. That’s why I said it was a punch from the gods.
“It wasn’t a lucky punch but I train to defend that. It was a shot which just caught me on the head and I couldn’t recover. It was pitch perfect.
“Where it’s different this time is I’m more experienced. I have a different challenge in my head.
“When you’ve walked the road once, you can do it again. I know that I can get it back.”