PARKER WILL BE MINE... BY ROUND NINE!
Joshua’s predicting when, just like Ali
Anthony Joshua makes no claim to being the new Muhammad Ali, but he does fancy that he is catching up with the Greatest when it comes to predicting the rounds in which he knocks out his opponents.
‘this ain’t no jive, Cooper falls in five,’ said Ali with psychic precision when he came to London to beat our ’Enery.
‘I usually know the time, Parker fades in eight or nine,’ says Joshua as he divines the outcome of Saturday’s world heavyweight title unification battle with Kiwi Joe in Cardiff.
‘Ali was something else but I’m usually close to the point,’ adds our holder of the WBA, IBF and IBo titles as he prepares for his attempt to claim Joseph Parker’s WBo belt.
By way of evidence he cites his preceding championship defence. ‘A lot of people thought I would stop Carlos takam in two or three rounds,’ he says. ‘I said it would take me 10 and I was spot-on.’
his next comparison is with Wladimir Klitschko, for whom the effort of coming back from defeat by tyson Fury in a bid to find redemption by beating Joshua was a self-confessed obsession which he fell short of achieving.
For Joshua, going on from that epic night last year to beat the rest of the best heavyweights is what he describes as ‘an addiction’, one that is driving him down the road to becoming the undisputed champion of the world.
‘I’m not obsessed like Wladimir,’ he says. ‘I have an addiction which is fun, especially when I’m winning fights like I am now. And like I expect on Saturday.’ that is a prediction which demanded the eight-to-nine clarification.
not least because 66 per cent of Joshua’s fellow Brits are taking the more generous odds of 5-1 for a Joseph Parker upset.
Joshua remains 1-9 favourite with Ladbrokes but the bookies are feeling nervous.
AJ reassures them: ‘I’ve trained for 12 rounds, but it won’t go the distance. this is my life. I didn’t choose a career path after college or go to uni. I chose boxing.
‘It’s challenging, because part of the addiction is having to keep improving. I talk a lot to Wladimir’s last trainer, Johnathon Banks.
‘talk about how even after a decade as world heavyweight champion Wladimir kept learning, kept improving his jab, quickening his movement.
‘It’s reminded me that in my era there is no room for mistakes.
‘Even after 20 straight Kos I’m not satisfied. It also taught me about controlling these media conferences. During my stare down with Wladimir he suddenly said, “We’ve done this before so let’s look away in five... one, two, three, four, five”. So I did the same to Joseph and he went along with it. Control, man.’
As for the betting patterns Joshua says: ‘If I had £20 in my pocket, I would put it on Anthony Joshua to knock out Joseph Parker.’
the courtesies were observed at the last media conference before they fight for each other’s world titles in front of a near-80,000 crowd in Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on Saturday night but Joshua’s basic message was curt. And when it came to elaborating, he was cunning.
he fixed his gaze on Parker and said: ‘Every fight is a blessing. Every fight has a reason in the long run. Parker is about to add something to my life journey.’
Presumably, that includes the WBo belt which Parker brings with him to this argument. A trophy to which he is clinging with two arms, both of which needed elbow surgery shortly before Christmas.
Joshua v Parker live on Sky Sports Box Office on Saturday.