{"id":356356,"date":"2025-12-18T16:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T16:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356356\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T16:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T16:00:07","slug":"anthony-joshua-responds-to-tyson-furys-criticism-of-his-controversial-press-conference-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/356356\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Joshua responds to Tyson Fury’s criticism of his controversial press conference comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Anthony Joshua<\/a>\u2019s recent comments wasn\u2019t taken too kindly by Tyson Fury<\/a>, and now \u2018AJ\u2019 has responded to \u2018The Gypsy King.\u2019<\/p>\n

Joshua returns on Friday when he he faces Jake Paul<\/a>, headlining a nine-fight card in Miami, with 18 fighters stepping into the ring fully aware of the risks involved in boxing.<\/p>\n

Several fighters have lost their lives in the ring this year, a reality that only heightened the reaction to words spoken by a figure as prominent as Joshua.<\/p>\n

The 2012 Olympic gold medallist and former unified heavyweight champion goes into his 33rd professional bout with significant physical and experiential advantages over Paul, who has competed at nowhere near the same level. One of the major talking points ahead of Friday\u2019s fight is whether Joshua would approach Paul like any other opponent or subconsciously take the task less seriously.<\/a><\/p>\n

At Tuesday\u2019s media day, Joshua was asked about that very issue and replied:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I can kill you, I\u2019ll kill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the gulf in experience, power and boxing intelligence, concerns have been raised for Paul\u2019s safety. Joshua\u2019s longtime rival Tyson Fury criticised the remarks on Instagram, branding him a \u201cclassless loser.\u201d<\/p>\n

At yesterday\u2019s press conference, host Ariel Helwani put Fury\u2019s response to Joshua, who defended his mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my job. We fight. We\u2019re licensed to kill. I\u2019m sure many people don\u2019t understand it, but this is what my job is. I just enjoy what I do. Whatever happens, happens. As long as my hand\u2019s raised that\u2019s what\u2019s important, right? Respectfully. That\u2019s just the mentality we have to have as fighters.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if any other fighters think that way. Maybe they\u2019re a bit more tame. But the things I watch and the way my mind works\u2026 when you\u2019re in that ring it\u2019s a dangerous place to be and anything can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

While his words from Tuesday continued to echo, Joshua attempted to soften the message by stressing that he hopes all of his opponents leave the ring safely. However, he ultimately doubled down on the idea that boxing remains a job with inherent risks.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hope your opponent leaves the ring safely, but if they don\u2019t, you still have to go to bed at night knowing you just done your job. It wasn\u2019t personal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between February and October this year John Cooney, 28, Olarewaju Segun, 40, Shigetoshi Kotari, 28, Hiromasa Urakawa, 28, Ernest Akushey, 32, and Eleazar Aguilera, 36, all died while competing in the ring. Though Joshua has been an excellent role model in the sport, many will still recognise his comments as clumsy and unnecessary, particularly ahead of this main event where some are genuinely worried about the outcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Anthony Joshua\u2019s recent comments wasn\u2019t taken too kindly by Tyson Fury, and now \u2018AJ\u2019 has responded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-356356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}