In this media interview captured by Fight Hub TV, unified heavyweight titleholder Anthony Joshua talks about what made him feel the need to respond to Team Parker’s quips over his supposed ‘weak chin.’
Joshua on why he interrupted promoter David Higgins when he questioned his ability to take a punch:
‘I thought [the weak chin angle] was one of their main talking points, but I was gonna let him finish without being rude — I didn’t want to cut him off — but I did want to address it because I’ve heard it quite a lot. And as I’ve said, when you hear it once it’s like interesting, twice, three times. And then it gets brought into a marketing tool for the fight, I was like ‘Whoa!’ If there’s any better time let me address the situation now...
“With all due respect, I’m not shy to admit, you’ve seen what you’ve seen happen with the Klitschko fight. Klitschko got dropped in that fight, it doesn’t make him a shit fighter. It doesn’t make him a weak fighter. He’s still regarded as one of the greatest champions we’ve ever had.
“What I take from that is that it takes more than a human or more than talk to just put me down and keep me down. I’ll just keep on going. So that’s what I was trying to explain, is that I see it from a positive aspect — the times it’s happened — but other people try to use that as a weakness...”
On if he thinks Teams Parker is just trying to get a psychological edge on him:
“I don’t know if they was using that as a way to kind of gain confidence in their camp, that they’ve got a chance, do you know where I’m coming from?...
“I need to win. I can’t afford to lose, but I want to do it in a clinical way...If I have to go to war and drain my body of sweat and energy — I’ll do that to get the win. That’s no problem. But I wanna do it the clinical, not easy way, but fashionable way of boxing.”
On how he rates Parker among the other big heavyweights he’s faced or could face:
“In terms of levels [between Parker, Fury, Wilder, and Klitschko], I’ll let you make the decision [laughs]. I’m not gonna give you that.”