Carl Froch has suggested that Anthony Joshua could RETIRE from boxing – and it could date back to the Andy Ruiz Jr defeat.
Cast your minds back prior to AJ’s defeat to Ruiz Jr. He was on the top of the world, the king of the heavyweight division. Nothing, and nobody, could stand in his way.
That was, of course, until Ruiz Jr defeated him via TKO on his US debut to dethrone him as the heavyweight champion of the world, albeit momentarily.
Despite Joshua’s success in the rematch against Ruiz Jr, the general consensus is that the London 2012 champion has not been the fighter since that night.
British boxing icon Carl Froch, quoted in a recent interview by The Sun has now suggested that it could provoke the end of Joshua’s boxing career as a whole.
“When you’ve made it and you’re world champion and you’re pretty much financially secure, you start to almost question being a boxer.”
“I think that’s Anthony Joshua ’s problem now. He got beat up by Andy Ruiz Jr and that’s mentally scarred him – he knows he can get hurt, he knows he can get stopped.”
“AJ’s got to be worth £100million, minimum. If you’ve got what you want out of life and you’ve achieved it, why are you going to go back into the ring and get your head punched in?”
“Why would you? It’s a dangerous sport. You have to weigh up whether the risk is worth the reward.”
“What am I fighting for? Some more money that I don’t need and that I’ll never spend? What’s the risk?’ It could be goodbye.”
There doesn’t appear to be any concrete suggestion that Joshua has plans to retire following back-to-back defeats to pound-for-pound great Oleksandr Usyk.
Considering all he has achieved in his career, you also have to assume that he would not want to end it on the back of those two losses against the Ukrainian.
However, there is a question mark over how many more fights Joshua has left in him and whether the hunger and desire remains in his stomach as it once did.
We don’t believe that there’s any imminence in Joshua hanging up the gloves, but don’t be surprised if these next few years are his last as a professional boxer.
You have to weigh up whether the risk is worth the reward. If you’re once a champion, save the remaining reputation.
Hang off the gloves if there is no gain in the game, be connected with contentment…✍🏼✍🏼✍🏼👂