Anthony Joshua is set to make his comeback into the ring to face Oleksandr Usyk in a rematch on July 23, after losing to the latter last September. This loss was only the second of his career after he lost his heavyweight title to Andy Ruiz in June,2019, which he later avenged.

Joshua started training at Loughborough University following his defeat. In addition to training with Rob McCracken, Joshua has made visits and trained with Eddy Reynoso, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and Robert Garcia.

Joshua comes in with a gameplan

In a Q&A session, the British boxer had this to say, “This is the first time in my career I’d say we are specifically working on a game plan, I’ve based a lot of my success on raw ability, but the raw ability wasn’t enough, so now I’m going to try out this game plan training and see how it goes. I plan to go back to the basics and take this guy out”.

Joshua seems to be prepared for Usyk, but many fans feel he is just making excuses for his losses.

Claressa Shields reacts to Joshua

Olympic gold medalist and women’s middleweight champion Claressa Shields was not shy to troll Joshua on Twitter.

She tweeted, “Wait so champ just been out here winging it 😂 yeah y’all different! This the right way to go though! Strategize!!” 

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Shields took shots at Joshua for his comments and emphasized the right way to box. Many fans also felt that Joshua was just making excuses for his losses and inactivity in the ring.

Anthony Joshua vs Oleksandr Usyk 2

This time around Joshua will have much more time to prepare for Usyk as there were a lot of delays mainly due to the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

As a result, Joshua and Matchroom Boxing began looking out for other possible opponents. But, discussions of a possible interim fight for Joshua were taken off the table after Usyk was granted clearance to leave Ukraine to train for the rematch.

He has also drafted in former Anthony Joshua training partner Martin Bakole to help him in camp for their world title rematch and certainly seems to have a strategy for their upcoming bout.

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Gameplan or not the former heavyweight champion has a great challenge ahead to overcome Usyk, who clearly won the first fight. And at long last, fans will get to see a rematch between the two heavyweights.

Do you think that boxers can win based solely on talent? Let us know in the comments.