03 January 2024 , 17:23
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Anthony Joshua has been told by former trainer Robert Garcia that a potential fight against Francis Ngannou "shouldn't be sanctioned".
Former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua is currently searching for his next opponent after making easy work of Otto Wallin just days before Christmas. 'AJ' rebounded after consecutive defeats to Oleksandr Usyk by winning three fights last year and former UFC champion Ngannou is in the running to fight him next.
Ngannou put on a stunning performance in his boxing debut last October against Joshua's bitter rival Tyson Fury, controversially losing the fight by one point on the judges' scorecards. Robert Garcia, who coached Joshua for his rematch with Usyk, explained why he thinks 'AJ' vs Ngannou wouldn't be close.
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"It’s a f****ng easy fight for Joshua. Those fights shouldn’t even be sanctioned,' Garcia told ESNEWS. "Ngannou, fighting the heavyweight champion of the world, Fury, and it being sanctioned is stupid. Fury disrespected boxing by not training one single day for that fight. He disrespected boxing bad, it was f****ng embarrassing."
Eddie Hearn opens talks for Anthony Joshua vs Francis Ngannou heavyweight fight
"You can't call it an upset because Fury won, the judges gave it to Fury so you can't call it an upset. In heavyweight boxing, none of these [current] guys would hang with Mike Tyson, [Evander] Holyfield, [Larry] Holmes. That was different. Joshua is one of the good ones, but you can’t compare them to the 80s and 90s."
Joshua labelled a potential fight against Ngannou as a "gimmick" but the Brit's promoter Eddie Hearn changed his tone on the former UFC champion after his fight against Fury. Hearn thinks Joshua will fight Filip Hrgovic for a world title in his next fight but named Ngannou and Zhilei Zhang as other potential opponents.
"Obviously there’s a Hrgovic fight out there for the world heavyweight title. There’s a Francis Ngannou fight out there which would be absolutely colossal. There’s other heavyweights as well, the [Zhilei] Zhang fight possibly as well with Queensbury. Our conversations right now are about mapping out Joshua's next four or five fights," Hearn toldiFL TV.