19 July 2023 , 14:44
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Carl Froch has taken aim at Anthony Joshua once again, slamming the former heavyweight champion as making a "b**** move" by discrediting the coaching of their former trainer.
Joshua has generally tried to stay away from mocking Froch, but he took a slight shot at the former super-middleweight champion in his critique of Rob McCracken, who trained both men. The ex-fighter regularly slams Joshua for his lack of major wins, and has claimed that as yet he has not had a legacy-defining career moment.
And in a recent interview with Boxing News, Joshua took a shot back, claiming that McCracken's work as a coach defensively led to Froch's nose being injured multiple times. "Rob’s a really good coach," he insisted, before joking: "The only thing I’ll say though is look at [Carl] Froch’s nose. He just didn’t teach me defence. And in heavyweight boxing, the level of competition I was facing at that stage of my career, I was getting hit way too much with clean shots."
Froch has hit back, telling TalkBoxing : “For a grown man to try and personally insult another grown man on his physical appearance, for me that’s a b**** move. Just let him come out with that, let him have it. I sincerely hope he’s talking about the old nose, not the newly constructed piece of artwork I'm carrying around on my face, I’m actually quite happy with this nose.
"My aesthetic features aside, I'm looking at this as a real dig at Rob McCracken. This is a guy who's a master of his craft, I heard what he said and Rob McCracken is a man that first of all got AJ out of jail, I'm going to pause now because I'm not going to go into that, he got him out of jail so do your research, I'm not going to elaborate on that.
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"He also guided him to an Olympic gold medal in 2012, Olympic champion. Working with someone who's not a natural fighter; Anthony Joshua who hasn't got that amateur pedigree as a schoolboy then a kid coming through, he's working with someone who's having to engineer all the basic and he's done a fantastic job and got him an Olympic gold medal."
Carl Froch and Anthony Joshua's relationship has deteriorated (Getty Image)What do you make of Anthony Joshua's comments and Carl Froch's response? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
McCracken coached Joshua as an amateur, before bringing him to world honours, twice winning unified gold in the form of the WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles in the paid ranks. And Froch believes he should be given more credit despite the Brit now working with Derrick James.
"Then he guided him to two world titles," Froch continued. "And he's got the audacity and the disrespect to say that he wasted years with Rob McCracken and he didn't teach him defence. For me, that's disgusting, there's no comeback for that for me when it comes to AJ.
"I'm not going to hold that against him because he's done what's right for him and he's saying these things, having a little personal dig at me which is fine. I worked on building sites all my life, I'm a big boy and that's all we do, take the p*** out of each other all day long and I've got a thick skin."