{"id":801610,"date":"2026-07-15T10:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801610\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T10:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T10:17:08","slug":"anthony-joshua-saw-ilia-topurias-loss-and-cut-himself-off-from-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801610\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Joshua saw Ilia Topuria\u2019s loss and cut himself off from everyone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Joshua has started taking the fight game more seriously
\nsince Ilia
\nTopuria<\/a>\u2019s loss to Justin
\nGaethje<\/a> in the
\nUltimate Fighting Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Topuria put his lightweight title on the line against interim
\nchampion Gaethje at
\nUFC Freedom 250<\/a>. While “El Matador” was a massive favorite
\ngoing into the bout and nearly finished it in the second round,
\nGaethje piled on the damage in the subsequent frames, leading to a
\ncorner stoppage before the final round. It marked the first defeat
\nof Topuria\u2019s professional career.<\/p>\n

Some of Topuria\u2019s pre-fight antics and the eventual result of the
\nrecent UFC lightweight championship fight have resonated with
\nJoshua.Anthony Joshua explains how Ilia Topuria\u2019s loss to Justin
\nGaethje changed his approach to boxing
\n
\nJoshua notes that Topuria had celebrated the night before the fight
\nand had done so before previous bouts. While “AJ” doesn\u2019t want to
\ncriticize the former two-division champion, the Brit had a massive
\nrealization. Joshua has cut all unnecessary contact with people,
\nmaking himself inaccessible, since Topuria\u2019s first professional
\nloss. The Englishman notes that the fight business isn\u2019t all fun
\nand games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you’ve got to be in the fight game to truly know; it\u2019s not
\nlit,\u201d Joshua told Combat Evolved. \u201cIt\u2019s not what people think it
\nis. It\u2019s not all fun and games. It’s a serious, serious job. Stay
\naway from people who just want to get lit and get upset when you
\ndon\u2019t return calls and stuff. It\u2019s not personal. When I watched the
\nIlia Topuria fight, I stopped replying to people after that.
\nBecause I said, \u2018Yo, it\u2019s not a joke.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Dissecting Topuria\u2019s loss to Gaethje, Joshua further claimed that
\nnothing can be taken for granted in combat sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw someone in Ilia who was destined to win,\u201d he added. \u201cThe
\nstars were aligned for him to be victorious. I think Ilia had
\nbeaten people that Justin had lost against; the odds were in his
\nfavor. Not a bad thing, but I saw him celebrating before. He\u2019s
\nentitled to do what he wants, but I just took something from it and
\nI said, \u2018Get back to being uncontactable, less accessible, because
\nthe fight game is so serious.\u2019 You saw his face, what he went
\nthrough. It\u2019s not a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joshua (29-4) is set to return to action against Kristian Prenga
\n(20-1) on July 25 at Jeddah Superdome in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Joshua has started taking the fight game more seriously since Ilia Topuria\u2019s loss to Justin Gaethje in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[4225,64,63,802,44,85],"class_list":["post-801610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801610","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=801610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}