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Anthony Joshua has revealed his desire to “harm” Oleksandr Usyk ahead of their highly-anticipated world title rematch this weekend.
Joshua was stunned by Usyk last year in London, with the underdog claiming all four belts after he won the 12 round battle by unanimous decision.
While Usyk etched his name into the history books, his more fancied opponent went back to the drawing board after losing his world champion status for the second time in four bouts.
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Joshua (24-2-0, 22 KOs) had lost to Mexican Andy Ruiz at Madison Square Garden in 2019 by TKO, before he won them all back later that year in Saudi Arabia.
The British superstar is hoping that history can repeat this weekend, as he takes another world title rematch to Saudi Arabia.
With the IBF, IBO, WBA and WBO titles on the line, Joshua is confident he’ll become a three-time world champion against Usyk, who helped his country’s war efforts against Russia earlier in the year.
“I do want to do him harm this time, despite all my respect for what he has done in the war in Ukraine,” Joshua told the Daily Mail.
“I do know that if I use my elements of height and strength, I will have a better chance of winning.”
Joshua burst onto the world boxing scene at the London 2012 Olympics where he won a gold medal, but so did Usyk in a lighter division.
The 32-year-old went on to beat some of the biggest names in the sport including Dillian Whyte and Wladimir Klitschko, before the loss to Ruiz stunted a shot at further greatness.
After winning back his belts by unanimous decision, and then beating Kubrat Pulev, Joshua wanted to “prove” to the world that he could box by going 12 rounds with Usyk.
The Ukrainian, who signed up with the Kyiv Territorial Defense as part of the ongoing conflict, had only fought twice as a heavyweight before fighting Joshua after making his name as a cruiserweight.
“It sounds crazy but I’m not going to lie. My objective was never to hurt him, to land damaging punches,” Joshua said.
“My aim was to go the full 12 rounds and prove I could box as well as he does, to land scoring punches.
“But I didn’t work hard enough to prepare for a 12 round fight at that pace. I wasn’t in the right mindset.
“Training camps are so challenging, so draining, so brain-fatiguing. I need to be better conditioned.
“I need adjustments to deal with a southpaw because to me these lefties are a nightmare. I swear that if Oleksandr wasn’t a lefty I would have smoke him, one hundred per cent.”
Even though he had the height advantage, Joshua was out-boxed by a fighter that he potentially hadn’t trained hard enough to fight.
The loss in September has stayed with him ever since, with Joshua describing the “nightmare” he’s had to live, waiting for his next chance to return to the ring.
“It has been a nightmare just sitting on this loss for so many months. The time-frame does change every day.
“I had dedicated a lot of my life to a very tough sport. I will do this for as long as I can but I think I’m quite smart at business now.
“I will be 33 shortly and a lot will come down to how long my body can hang on.”
Meanwhile, Usyk felt that he was potentially just “30 seconds” away from dropping Joshua, after 12 rounds of dominance.
“Perhaps if there were another 30 seconds or another minute in the 12th round, Anthony would have been knocked down,” Usyk told Parimatch.
“But I don’t think about it any more because it’s just guessing. It happened as it happened. I boxed 12 rounds and I won.”
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