Anthony Joshua Responds to the criticisms of Lennox Lewis
Over the past year, former undisputed Heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis has had some heavy criticisms for current WBA/WBO/IBF Heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua.
When negotiations failed last year for a bout between Joshua and Wilder, the 53 year-old former undisputed heavyweight champion felt it was not a complicated issue to make the fight and that Joshua (and Eddie Hearn) were in the best spot possible to dictate what they wanted.
“They could have got the fight but they did not take advantage of their position. It’s a situation where they have to know what is going on in their business.”
When asked in previous interviews about Joshua fighting either Wilder or Tyson Fury, Lewis has declared Joshua is not interested. He claimed Joshua is a protected fighter and even spoke on his upcoming June 1 fight against Jarrell Miller.
“He doesn’t want any of those guys. I wanted to see a better fight [than Joshua vs Miller].”
AJ Responds
During a recent interview to promote his upcoming fight with Miller, Joshua responded to the critique of Lewis.
“To be honest I don’t see them [Lewis’ comments]. But what I hear, he doesn’t have anything positive to say.
“So with that being said, I think it reflects back to my comments about how I feel about if I met him face-to-face, it would probably be different. Do you know what I mean?”
When asked whether he felt Lewis’ comments about him were taken out of context, he replied, “no because they were said on camera.”
“When you meet someone face to face they don’t have the same views they have when they were one-on-one in front of the camera.”
During the interview Joshua went on to say the following:
“But as I said, my outlook on the heavyweight division is that when I’m done with the sport, all I want to do is say nice, positive things about other heavyweights that are breaking my records, doing better than me and taking their own route in boxing.
“I’m not going to follow Lennox Lewis’ route [and] Wilder, Fury, Povetkin or Wladimir aren’t going to follow his route either.
“I feel like he had his thing set out, that was good for him. I have my thing, that’s good for me.”
While Joshua was trying to be as respectful as possible towards Lewis, you can tell that he didn’t necessarily like the criticisms from the Hall of Fame inductee.
Joshua was also adamant in declaring he’s creating his own mark and setting his own career path.
By: Michael Wilson Jr.
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