_1660596525.jpg)
Anthony Joshua says he is not bothered that he will be boxing for The Ring belt when he has his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk in Jeddah on Saturday,
The fight, for the WBA, WBO, IBO and IBF heavyweight titles, will also be for The Ring title, after the magazine decided to take the belt off Tyson Fury after the WBC champion said he was retiring, even though few expect him to stick to that.
The Ring belt is one Joshua has regularly said he want to hold, but when Eddie Hearn messaged him on Sunday to tell him The Ring’s decision, the promoter did not even get a reply.
“I just want to win, I am not bothered to be honest,” Joshua said.
“That’s what Eddie rung and messaged me about and I didn’t even reply, I am not even interested in the Ring Magazine belt.
“He messaged me and I didn’t message him back. That’s where my mind is at, this is just about the fight.”
Last Friday was the tenth anniversary of Joshua’s Olympic super-heavyweight triumph, but he admits he hasn’t ever really had the chance to settle down and reflect on what has mostly been a decade of success.
“Time does fly, ten years,” he said. “It’s crazy. It’s not so much what I’ve achieved in the sport, it’s the time. Where has the time gone?
“Back then I was coming 23, buzzing. Now I’m going to be 33 and it’s like how, where has the time gone? That’s more what I think when I reflect on the last 10 years.”
But what advice would he give the younger Joshua if he had the chance to speak to him now?
“I would definitely say to train hard,” he said. “I trained as hard as I could for the relevant task, but I’ve trained harder this camp, to be honest with you. I’ve pushed myself harder than before, which I’ve never done before. I’ve pushed myself and done things I’ve never done before in training.
“That’s come from losing. So, at the time when I was winning, what I was doing was enough.
“I can’t say I would have changed much else, maybe I would have probably had other fights. Maybe the Wilder fight, the Fury fight, but they didn’t happen.
“Other than that, everything’s been relevant for the time. But now looking back on, I would pass on my knowledge to the younger, up and coming fighters. I feel like I’ve gained a lot of experience.”
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 – covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.