Roy Jones Jr has spoken about whether or not he thinks Anthony Joshua can reclaim a world title before the end of his career.
Joshua is one of the most decorated heavyweights of his generation. He is a former Olympic gold medalist who started racking up knockout wins as soon as he turned over. By 2015 he was British champion after knocking out Dillian Whyte, and then he stopped Charles Martin to pick up his first world title.
He added further belts with a victory over Wladimir Klitschko. A second unification with Joseph Parker saw him go the distance for the first time in his career, but the prize was to add the third of the four major world titles to his collection.
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He lost all those belts in 2019 to Andy Ruiz but won them back six months later in the rematch, then lost again to Oleksandr Usyk in 2021, and failed to regain the belts in a return fight in 2022.
Although he rebuilt with more impressive KO wins, he lost in his attempt to become a three-time world champion when he was stopped inside five rounds by IBF ruler Daniel Dubois back in September.
Speaking to Covers, former multi-weight world champion Jones Jr suggested things would have been different had he coached ‘AJ.’
“Of course things would have been different if I had the chance to work with (Joshua), but you can’t blame people for their opinion and the way they do things. I feel bad the way they thought about me working with him, I know what I could have helped him out with and how much I could have changed him but I can’t change what doesn’t want to be changed.”
Asked about his future, Jones Jr still backed the Brit to get back to the top.
“It’s still possible he becomes a world champion, he still has the heart, he’s still got the athletic ability, so I think he could.”
Right now Joshua has no fight scheduled but many hope Tyson Fury will come out of retirement and the pair will have a legacy-defining showdown to settle their long feud once and for all.
As for becoming champion again, the only current options to do that are Dubois and Usyk, neither of which ‘AJ’ would step through the ropes as a favourite.
