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Heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte has given his take on Anthony Joshua testing the waters with new trainers.
Back in September, Joshua suffered the second defeat of his career when he was outboxed over twelve rounds by Oleksandr Usyk at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Usyk walked away with the WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO world titles.
Joshua has exercised an immediate rematch clause, with the second fight taking place in the first quarter of 2022.
Joshua recently spent some time in the United States, where he spotted working out with several top trainers like Ronnie Shields.
For his entire career, Joshua has been trained by veteran coach Robert McCracken.
Whyte, who suffered a knockout loss to Joshua in 2015, says his domestic rival should look inside of himself, not at his trainers, for what went wrong in his last ring appearance.
“The easiest thing to do when you lose is to question the people around you instead of questioning yourself. Robert McCracken is a great trainer. Look what he’s done for Carl Froch and other people on the GB squad. But when you lose you start looking for excuses, ‘Ah maybe I didn’t sleep enough, maybe it’s my coaches.’ Joshua’s problem is with himself, it’s not with his coaches – it’s him,” Whyte told Talk Sport.
“He let all these idiots come around him and start telling him, ‘Ah, yeah, do this and be like this.’ He should’ve started steaming Usyk after a few rounds, he should’ve at least tried. He just subdued to a twelve round beating.”
With respect to the rematch, Whyte is unsure if Joshua is capable of getting revenge. He felt the referee should have stopped the first encounter in the twelfth and final round, when Usyk was continuously connecting with a lot of hard shots.
“I don’t know. I thought Usyk stopped him in the last round. I thought the referee should’ve stopped it,” Whyte said.