Ego is getting the better of Joshua says former sparring partner

World title contender Joe Joyce believes Nigeria born former world champion Anthon Joshua is now ‘letting his ego go’ and accused his heavyweight rival of leaking his ‘best bits’ of their now infamous sparring session.

Joshua’s proposed world title rematch with Oleksandr Usyk looked in serious jeopardy last month following the heavyweight champion’s decision to return to Ukraine following the Russian invasion.

While the fight is now back on, a number of fighters and promoters approached Joshua over an interim fight during that period of uncertainty, with Joyce, undefeated with 12 knockouts from his 13 victories, among them.

The former Olympians who became friends in their Team GB days were involved in a wild social media spat in March with Joshua dismissing the threat of Joyce having beaten his rival inside one round back in their amateur days in 2011.

The emergence of an edited, 40-second video showing the former IBF, WBO and WBA champion seemingly getting the better of Joyce in a sparring session added further fuel to the fire.

Joyce, who is back in fight camp having recovered from a wrist injury suffered at the start of the year, has now lifted the lid on those old sparring sessions and reiterated his desire to settle an old score.

‘He leaked, or his team leaked, footage of sparring, all his best bits,’ Joyce told Metro.co.uk .

‘Some of the sparring I have seen out there is from when we were drilling certain things. He can only throw left hooks, he can only throw straight arm shots, you can only throw bent arm shots, certain scenarios like that.

 ‘I don’t know what is going with Joshua these days, I haven’t spoken to him or seen him in a long time. Something has gone to his head. He seems to be a lot more vocal on Twitter and I guess I kind of took the bait.

‘Let’s see what happens. I would love to fight him one day and one day soon I hope. Let’s see how he gets on with Usyk and then we will be in touch.

‘But if he loses to Uysk, I might think: ‘Why would I fight you?’ I want belts. He has already got the belts and lost them. I want to win the belts and keep them.’

When Joshua turned professional in 2013, he remained part of the Team GB picture up in Sheffield where his fight camps would be held, sparring with Joyce in the run up to his 2017 showdown with Wladimir Klitschko.

With that in mind, the animosity between the two on social media came as a surprise somewhat, with Joshua laughing off Joyce as a threat and recalling their 2011 amateur contest that ended in a first round victory for the future world champion.

But as time has passed, Joyce believes his rise to join the heavyweight elite has spooked his old rival.

 ‘Over the years when I was on the Team GB squad, I wasn’t a threat to him. As a pro, he was always up here, and I was down there, so it was the case of catching up. Now we are on the same level,’ Joyce said.

‘Now he is seeing me as that threat. Some of his recent performances haven’t been so good – maybe he is not being as corporate and he is letting his ego go.’ 

‘He has always thought that, because he got that early victory when I was a novice [in 2011]. I wasn’t quite ready for that, everything seemed to be stacked in his favour with that fight.

‘I had to box twice that night, he only had to box once after watching me. I was making mistakes to be fair, I had just fought a southpaw so I was walking onto a few right hands. I got a 10 count and before I knew it the fight was over, I didn’t even know the rules at that point!

 ‘For him to bring that up, [it shows] he has held onto that, beating me in one round. Now that I am a threat to him, he wants to make everyone aware that he knocked me out in a round.’