ANTHONY JOSHUA insists he will reign again as the comeback king.
The 32-year-old Watford ace admits he got his ‘a*** bust’ by Ukraine icon Oleksandr Usyk last September.
Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua came face-to-face in Jeddah ahead of their rematch
Neither fighter broke eye contact in an intense stare down
Joshua is hoping to reclaim the WBA, WBO, IBO and IBF titles
Joshua and Usyk posing for a selfie
But the red-hot August 20 rematch is signed and sealed for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where temperatures will hit 40 degrees and the heat on AJ to deliver will be scorching.
The reformed bad boy seems to have blamed decade-long mentor Rob McCracken for the baffling gameplan to try to outbox the 35-year-old southpaw, replacing the Team GB mentor with Robert Garcia.
And he reckons he has learned from all his mistakes – going right back to his childhood and the 2019 loss to Andy Ruiz – to make sure revenge and redemption will score him a hat-trick of heavyweight world title wins.
The London 2012 golden boy said: “With Andy Ruiz, I think people could see things weren’t 100 per cent but you have to be strong and thick skinned. We took our loss like a man.
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“When I win I keep it moving and I thank everybody you have to be the same in defeat. I knew I could come back again.
“Usyk bust my a*** and I have to take that defeat like a man as well.
“But I hold myself accountable, I can admit when I am wrong and hold my head up high when I am right.
“In the fight in September I was wrong and he was right and I have to reverse that on August 20.
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“I have a second chance, when I was young I was getting in trouble and got a second chance and found boxing.
“If you know me and my story you know I am the comeback king.
“You can put me down but not keep me down. Even in my tough times I know everything will make sense in the long run.”
AJ and McCracken disastrously tried to outbox the southpaw genius last summer.
So Joshua made Mexican-American trainer Garcia his head-trainer and auditioning a number of US coaches.
But all of the respected 47-year-old’s 14 previous world champions have come at weights almost half of Joshua’s size.
The plan seems to be to strip everything back and make Joshua the old wrecking ball that raged through the division after his 2012 Olympic pinnacle.
But it remains to be seen if such a simple plan to walk down and flatten one of the sports great magicians will come up trumps.
Joshua continued: “I don’t like to overcomplicate things.
“There is genius in simplicity, if you can keep things simple you can achieve great things.
“So I will keep things simple, move forward and the date will soon come.
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“We have to give Usyk and his team credit, I am not a hater, I respect him and his craft.
“That just motivates me to be better, if I am around someone who is better than me I have to motivate myself to be better. “
