{"id":281392,"date":"2025-11-24T22:34:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T22:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/281392\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T22:34:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T22:34:09","slug":"anthony-joshua-reveals-the-real-reason-he-left-ben-davison-to-join-oleksandr-usyks-training-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/281392\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Joshua reveals the real reason he left Ben Davison to join Oleksandr Usyk’s training team"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Anthony Joshua<\/a> prepares for the most unexpected fight of his career, he will do so without trainer Ben Davison<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pair linked up in 2023 following Joshua\u2019s split from Derrick James, working together for three fights that produced two wins and one defeat. Victories over former European champion Otto Wallin and UFC heavyweight king Francis Ngannou appeared to signal the return of the old, destructive Joshua. However, that attack-minded approach ultimately cost him a third heavyweight title in September 2024, when Daniel Dubois dropped him four times and stopped him in the fifth round to cap a disastrous night at Wembley Stadium for \u2018AJ\u2019.<\/p>\n

Joshua\u2019s 15-month exile will end on December 19, when he faces YouTuber-turned-professional boxer Jake Paul<\/a> in an eight-round heavyweight bout.<\/p>\n

Having worked under Robert McCracken, Robert Garcia, Derrick James and Ben Davison, the former unified champion revealed at the Jake Pau<\/a>l\u2013Anthony Joshua launch press conference<\/a> that he has now joined Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>\u2019s training team. Joshua praised Davison as a \u2018phenomenal\u2019 coach and claimed he only left due to London being a \u2018distraction.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t be trained by Ben Davison. I said that London is a bit distracting for me.<\/p>\n

I was invited to train with Team Usyk, so I\u2019ve been in Spain, we\u2019ve been doing some good training and he\u2019s one of the best in the world and it\u2019s not all down to him, it\u2019s also down to his team, so I linked up with them.<\/p>\n

Getting an insight into how someone who has achieved so much has been phenomenal. Igor [will be my head trainer on the night]. I\u2019ve been with them a couple of months now.<\/p>\n

Ben Davison \u2013 phenomenal coach \u2013,[I asked] Ben what do you think [about training with Usyk\u2019s team]? Ben said, \u2018100 per cent \u2013 that\u2019s a great move.\u2019<\/p>\n

[So I] went out there and spent time with the three-time undisputed champ. They\u2019re killing me, drilling me, but this is where I need to be.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how serious I\u2019m taking Jake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who \u201cIgor\u201d is has yet to be revealed. Joshua will hope that some of Team Usyk\u2019s magic \u2013\u2013 the same that produced two wins over him \u2013\u2013 can help guide him back to a world title run, provided he takes care of Jake Paul next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Anthony Joshua prepares for the most unexpected fight of his career, he will do so without trainer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-281392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}