In the immediate aftermath of Anthony Joshua’s unanimous decision loss to Oleksandr Usyk this past Saturday, Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn talks to the media during the post-fight press conference to share his thoughts on Joshua’s latest setback and why this loss is easier to swallow than Joshua’s previous loss to Andy Ruiz. Check out some excerpts below.
Hearn on Joshua’s latest loss
“Weirdly it’s a lot easier to take because you know how good Usyk is, and you always know if you don’t get it right there is a chance you can get beat. The Ruiz fight, I guess we were probably a bit naive at the time, almost walking on air that AJ would steamroll through everyone and that was just one bolt from the blue that you sort of couldn’t get over for weeks. Tonight, you just say ‘it’s sport, you’ve got beaten by the better man, what are you gonna do about it?’
“(Joshua’s) mind is working overtime already, he’s a very deep thinker. He’ll beat himself up for a while…but he dedicates everything he does to the sport. So it’ll cut him deep, but the Ruiz fight, very different. Tonight he got beat by a pound-for-pound fantastic fighter.”
“He’s got to make changes, he’s got to get better. Usyk will probably — I’m pretty sure he’ll be the favorite going into the rematch.”
On Joshua’s eye injury
“I think he’s okay, I don’t think he’s fractured an eye socket — that was the worry at first…He’s severely swollen but I think he’s okay.”
On their plans to rematch Usyk
“There’s so many things that AJ can improve on, so many. I don’t think it was a very good performance from AJ, not at all, but how much of that was the quality of Usyk? Probably quite a lot. But he’s got to make big improvements to win the rematch and he’s confident that he can do it.”
