Anthony Joshua says Deontay Wilder is ‘keen’ for fight in Saudi Arabia, Tyson Fury will ‘leave me waiting’

Anthony Joshua has suggested that he may fight Deontay Wilder in December in Saudi Arabia, but appeared to rule out any impending encounter with Tyson Fury.

The British heavyweight, 33, had lost his two previous bouts, both to Oleksandr Usyk.

“I think he’s keen finally on December in Saudi. I feel that I’m the underdog at the minute, which is a good place to be.

“And there’s talk about a fight before in London at the O2.

“Right now, there’s no one specifically. It probably won’t be top five or top 10, just on the outside.”

Expanding on continued rumours about if and when he will face Fury in what would be a blockbuster British fight, Joshua said: “It depends if I want to fight until I’m 40, because he will leave me waiting and I’m not getting any younger.

“But Wilder’s a good fight and I can’t hang around because it’s all the other fights you have to do to get to the big ones. It’s not just Fury but all the stuff in between.

“It takes a lot out of you. It depends how much energy I’ve got for the comments, the mental stress it puts on you, the questions constantly, the training you’ve got to do to be ready for the next fight, it’s a lot.

“Because I had 12 back-to-back championship fights, I feel like the pressure was a lot.”

Joshua also spoke about what the Franklin fight meant for him, as well as the way he manages to deal with the criticism he faces.

He said: “I didn’t want to go back to Texas with a loss as a result of trying to be the old AJ and make the same mistakes I was making before. I wanted to have a win under my belt and go back and build.

“There’s an element where some people say I’ve lost my touch. What I feel like is if I go to war and I’ve only got a bazooka in my armoury, what happens when the bazooka doesn’t work any more or the guy that you’re fighting has got a sword, a hand gun, a bazooka, a shield?

“That’s why I’m trying to develop an all-around game. That’s why the Franklin fight was a chance to test my fitness and I wanted to experience what it was to work off my jab.

“But it wasn’t about the Jermaine Franklin fight, it was all about where I want to be in December and beyond. Off the back of two losses, all I wanted to do was get the win.

He added: “Take today [at an event in London], there wasn’t one critic, just people saying, ‘Well done, great fight’. But if you were to go online and lock yourself away for 10 days, I’d think the whole world is against me, oh my God, I don’t even want to go outside.

“It’s so weird, it’s like two worlds I live in, the online world and the reality. Whatever people say about me, I’ve just got to be disciplined and give myself to this new style with my coach and become a better fighter than I once was.

“This last chapter of my career, I’ve got some big fights, hopefully starting with Wilder.”