{"id":755747,"date":"2026-08-31T16:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T16:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/755747\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T16:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T16:20:13","slug":"anthony-joshuas-first-boxing-coach-sums-up-his-current-ability-following-prenga-scare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/755747\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Joshua’s first boxing coach sums up his current ability following Prenga scare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthony Joshua\u2019s old amateur coach, Sean Murphy, has assessed whether \u2018AJ\u2019 still has the mental strength to compete at the top level.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old\u2019s mentality has been a divisive discussion point throughout his career, especially after his fifth-round stoppage defeat to Daniel Dubois<\/a> in September 2024.<\/p>\n

Back then, no one could question the heart he showed to keep climbing off the canvas, even after getting seriously hurt by the hard-hitting Dubois on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n

In terms of his mentality, it was, rather, a case of fans wondering whether Joshua could recover from the trauma of enduring such a beating.<\/p>\n

Eventually, the Londoner did return to action \u2013 albeit against Jake Paul \u2013 and encountered minimal difficulty as he engineered a sixth-round finish last December.<\/p>\n

Since then, though, concerns over his mentality have again been raised after he was involved in a car crash that took the lives of his two close friends.<\/p>\n

Many even felt this trauma played a role in his subsequent outing against Kristian Prenga<\/a>, who scored two knockdowns only to be dropped and stopped in round two of their July encounter.<\/p>\n

But while many have called for him to retire, coach Murphy has told The Stomping Ground<\/a> that he still views Joshua as a top-level heavyweight.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going to know when his time is up. He\u2019s got to have that mentality of: I\u2019m going into every fight and I\u2019m going to win every fight. And he still thinks that \u2013 I know he does.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s got a lot more left to offer. He ain\u2019t been in hundreds [of fights and] he don\u2019t get bashed up. The couple of ones he\u2019s lost, I feel he could\u2019ve won those fights.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor one reason or another, things didn\u2019t work out, but, after the [Andy] Ruiz one, look how he came back stronger than ever. If he puts his mind to it \u2026 he can beat any of the top heavyweights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy went on to suggest that, even against someone like Moses Itauma, Joshua has the power to change any fight with just one punch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Joshua\u2019s old amateur coach, Sean Murphy, has assessed whether \u2018AJ\u2019 still has the mental strength to compete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-755747","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\/755747","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=755747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}