10 May 2023 , 19:17
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Anthony Joshua sent Carl Froch a string of messages after he criticised his performance against Andy Ruiz Jr - but 'AJ' went on to delete the evidence.
Joshua, 33, lost his unified heavyweight titles to Ruiz Jr in June 2019 but won them back in their rematch later that year. Froch was less than impressed with Joshua's performance in the second fight as he wanted 'AJ' to knockout Ruiz Jr, but the Brit went on to win by a lop-sided decision. Froch thinks he upset Joshua by giving several interviews slamming his performance, something that led to a series of mysterious texts from 'AJ'.
"In the build-up I said I want to see AJ get in there and outbox Ruiz for five or six rounds, then demolish him and show the heavyweights he means business." Froch told Sporting Post. "I did an interview after and I just said I wasn’t impressed, I didn’t think it was good enough to get in there and outbox someone who’s 20 stone. I think that’s not proving anything to the other heavyweights.
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"So that evening I got messages on my phone, but they had been deleted, it said ‘AJ has deleted the messages’. I got four deleted messages and a missed call. I messaged him back and said ‘have you got something to say? Well done last night, what’s happening?’ It wasn’t horrible, AJ’s bigger than me!"
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Joshua defended his unified titles after winning them back against Ruiz Jr by knocking out Kubrat Pulev in December 2020. The Brit went on to lose back-to-back fights against Oleksandr Usyk but has since got back in the win column by beating Jermaine Franklin in a lacklustre performance last month.
Froch said that Joshua was "polite" when they bumped into each other for the first time after making the comments about his performance. Any feud between the two British boxing legends has seemingly passed as 'The Cobra' also crossed paths with Joshua before his fight against Franklin, insisting the pair were also on good terms at the event.
"When I saw him next he said ‘Alright trouble, how you doing?’ He was polite, he’s a nice guy and I like him," Froch added. "He has a nice character about him. He obviously had nothing to say, but then he didn’t say it. He obviously didn’t fancy a roll around on the cobbles with the Cobra. So I don’t quite know what that was to be honest, he messaged me but he’s got over it, he said hello at the Franklin fight."