The IBF, WBA and IBO world champion Anthony Joshua has insisted that it will take more than a human to stop completing his destiny, as the Brit faced off against WBO champion Joseph Parker in the press conference for their world heavyweight title unification clash.

Embed from Getty Images

It is a marketability strategy 

March 31 will hold pride and place in British boxing history, as The Principality Stadium will play host to the first clash between two heavyweight titlists. 

The clash between has been months in the making with all starting from team Parker, who held a bizarre press conference back in November in which they showed a compilation of Joshua getting knocked down. 

Joshua has only been knocked down once in his professional career which came in his iconic victory over Wladimir Klitschko, and in their fight announcement press conference Joshua was quick to highlight Parker's tactics as a "PR stunt". 

"When you talk about myself getting dropped and what you done, it's a marketability strategy," Joshua told his press conference. "When you want to talk about facts - the three times that I have been hurt or dropped was in the European Championships when McCracken knows I was actually banned from the GB team, because I was still getting in trouble." 

"I stopped boxing and two weeks before that European Championship, I was called up to the country," the boxer stated. "I was very unfit, I didn't get dropped. I got stopped. When your tank is empty, it's hard to perform.

"The second time was David Price. I had come out of a police cell the day I went up to training," the 28-year-old admitted. "I'm not going to use it as an excuse, but David Price is a puncher, and lack of experience." 

"With Klitschko, all those times it told me, it will take more than a human to stop me from where I'm destined to be, and that's what I learnt," the world champions proclaimed. "Not to walk with sight, because when you're fatigued you don't know where you are. I walk with faith in this journey." 

"In terms of using it as a PR stunt. The rumours that you have heard, they're fake news," Joshua added. "Hand on my heart. PR, whatever you want to use it for, is between you and your camp."

Embed from Getty Images

More than welcome to walk the ring 

Parker was one of the only a few fighters that was rumoured to take on Joshua in 2018, but one opponent was closer to home for the 28-year-old than the New Zealander. 

Joshua has been rumoured to fight fellow Brit Tyson Fury for a number of years, with the 29-year-old training for his long-awaited return to boxing since his triumph over Klitschko in 2015. 

Fury built up an unlikely relationship with Parker when he defeated Fury's cousin in his WBO defence last year, Parker suggested that Fury could be involved in the ring walk in Cardiff and Joshua stated that the 'gypsy king' would be "welcome" in the ring. 

"It's good. It brings attention to the sport," he said on Fury's possible cameo appearance. "It will be interesting because I am sure Fury will try and do a little tag-team and do a few rounds for him. He's just got that in his locker." 

"No matter what he says outwardly," the boxer proclaimed."He has a lot of underlying respect for me and that's just as a far as I know but I just take it with a pinch of salt." 

"I don't take anything from him to heart," Joshua concluded. "And if he wants he is welcome to walk to the ring."

VAVEL Logo
About the author
Danial  Kennedy
Award-winning sports journalism graduate. Currently studying a PR Masters at the University of Sunderland. Writing for VAVEL since August 2014. Twitter - @ddkjournalism.