Anthony Joshua: I Did Not Have A Panic Attack Before Andy Ruiz Fight
In the last hour, Anthony Joshua has posted a video onto his YouTube channel, reflecting back on his loss to Andy Ruiz Jr. this past weekend.
The loss was the first loss of Joshua’s professional career and has been labeled as one of the biggest upsets in combat sports history.
Joshua is remaining positive and philosophical about the result though. Posting the video from New York, the 29 year old said that despite the drama of his original opponent Jarrell Miller being pulled from the card for testing positive in three separate drug tests, Luis Ortiz pulling out and then Ruiz coming in on relatively late notice, his training camp was “spot on”.
Despite a great training camp, which started in Sheffield and ended in Miami, Joshua was stopped in the seventh round in his US debut, at Madison Square Garden. Resulting in the loss of his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO heavyweight world titles. It’s a loss that ‘AJ’ said is tough to take but will take like a man.
“I want to tell you this. I’m a soldier. I have to take my ups and my downs. And on Saturday, I took a loss, and I have to take it like a man. One of my sayings is, ‘Never let success get to your head. And never let your failures get to your heart’. It’s all about keeping a balance.”
And it’s that balance that is allowing Joshua to look back at his first fight in New York, positively. Stating that it was still an amazing night.
In the last couple of days, several reports have come out suggesting that Joshua had a panic attack just before his walkout at MSG and that he was knocked out in training, a week before the fight. Although he didn’t mention the alleged KO in training, he did deny having a panic attack before the fight.
“It was an amazing night. From the changing room, in the [New York] Knicks’ changing rooms space. I warmed up really well. I had no panic attack. I’m not that type of person.”
“That’s why I’m saying and I’m gong to keep on saying, I have to take my loss like a man. No blaming anyone. No blaming anything. I’m the one who went in there to perform and my performance didn’t go to plan, my game plan didn’t go to plan.”
The former champion also confirmed that there was a rematch clause in the contract and that it included a date and location. Although he didn’t say when or where the rematch will go down, he did say that he wouldn’t mind if it was in New York again.
If you were Anthony Joshua, where would you want the rematch to take place?
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