I lost sight of my opponent in ninth round – Joshua
Defeated former heavyweight champion, Anthony Joshua has revealed he could not see from his injured face at the ninth round of the fight with Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday.
Joshua lost his heavyweight titles as the three judges awarded the fight to Usyk by scores of 117-112, 116-112 and 115-113.
In his first comment on the fight, Joshua said, “Well done to the winner.
“We’ll be back again. Get back into training. Great twelve rounds, great experience in the ring, and then we progress from this point on once again so we’ll be doing it all again soon.
“I couldn’t see in the ninth round. I couldn’t see anything really. But it was a good experience because in adversity you just gotta learn to control yourself. Stay on top of things.
“When I couldn’t see anything, it’s the first time it’s happened in a fight. I was thinking ‘all right, cool…this is the first time my eye’s closed up in a fight. I can’t see anything and I’m looking out of one eye.’ But it got better as the rounds went on.
“We’ll be back 100 (percent). I’m ready to get back to training. Because of the twelve rounds, my lungs and everything, it was a good twelve-rounder so I’ll be in a good place when I get back into training to pick up where we left off.
“He’s got good pace but he still gets hit, you know? He gets hit a lot and in the rematch, we’ll just learn how to hit him more and be more concussive with our punch selection.
“I never tend to look at the opponent. I just tend to look at myself and realize where I went wrong. So it’s not so much what he did, it’s the opportunities I gave him. So it’s not so much him, I’m just going to go back and look at myself and correct my wrongs.”
Joshua also said he would still fight Tyson Fury and Wilder whatnot with or without his belts.
“The road to undisputed and all that stuff is good. As I said, I’ll fight Tyson Fury, Wilder whatnot, without the belts. The belts are fun, it’s great, it’s legacy, but with or without the belts I’ll fight whoever. The road to undisputed is a nice title to chase, but would you still watch it without the belts?” he said.
Source: FightNews
