ANTHONY JOSHUA claims Dillion Whyte should have ‘smelt blood’ and dispatched Alexander Povetkin in the third round – after KOing him twice.
AJ fears the Body Snatcher lacked the killer instinct needed to get rid of the Russian.
The Brixton boxer had put Povetkin down twice in the opening two rounds of this WBC interim silver belt clash.
But when the Londoner failed to hammer home his advantage in rounds three and four against the dazed Russian, it came back to haunt him.
Povetkin recovered and unleashed a sledgehammer of a left upper cut which knocked Whyte sparko.
Joshua, set to face Kubrat Pulev in December, told Sky Sports: “Does Dillian still have that instinct in him?
“Because the fight was called maximum violence.
“When he had the opportunity to take him out, I wanted to see that maximum violence.
“That’s why for me, when I smell blood, I go in there to take someone out, but sometimes you can get caught in the exchange.
“But at the end of the day, if you leave it a round or two later, as we’ve seen there anything can happen.
“The tactics go out the window. You’ve just got to remember this is a fight, you’ve got to take the man out and move on to the next.”
But Joshua had predicted pre-fight that Povetkin would take out the Body Snatcher.
Whyte’s promoter Eddie Hearn revealed AJ had tipped the Russian.
He said: “He actually, I think, believes that Alexander Povetkin will win on Saturday. I had a conversation with him the other day.
“This is a massive banana skin fight for Dillian Whyte.”
AJ himself knows all about coming back from adversity, which Whyte must do now.
The 2012 Olympic champ suffered a shock defeat to rank outsider Andy Ruiz Jr in 2019.
But he won the rematch in December convincingly.
Whyte, 32, will take on 40-year-old Povetkin in December.
But another defeat will surely spell the end of his career at the top level.
Povetkin is now the mandatory challenger for Tyson Fury’s WBC belt.
