Floyd Mayweather offers to train Anthony Joshua for his Oleksandr Usyk rematch as the former champion reveals he reached out to AJ to ‘teach him some pointers’ when he was still undefeated
- Floyd Mayweather offered to help train AJ ahead of his Oleksandr Usyk rematch
- Mayweather said ‘amateur coaches don’t always make you a great professional’
- The 44-year-old believes he can help Joshua fix some holes in his fighting style
- He also said that losing his world titles was ‘not an upset’ for the British star
Floyd Mayweather has once again offered to help train Anthony Joshua ahead of his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.
Joshua will fight Usyk for a second time next spring after losing his WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO belts on a unanimous points decision in front of a sell-out crowd at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in September.
However, Mayweather – who was ringside last December to watch Joshua knock out Kubrat Pulev – has offered to help the Brit ‘tweak’ his boxing style to become a ‘great professional’.
Floyd Mayweather (above) has once again offered to help train Anthony Joshua ahead of his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk
Joshua will fight Usyk for a second time after losing his WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO belts on a unanimous points decision in front of a sell-out crowd at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Speaking to reporters in California, Mayweather said: ‘I told him from the beginning, I came on the record from the beginning, I told him to come and I could teach him some pointers.
‘A lot of the time, this is just my take, the same coach you had as an amateur doesn’t always make you a great professional.
‘Some guys are great at amateur coaching and some guys are great at professional coaching, and even my dad was the best at professional.
Mayweather has offered to help AJ ‘tweak’ his boxing style to become a ‘great professional’
‘At the amateurs, he was teaching me like a professional, so I’m going to always speak real whether people like it or not.
‘I feel like Anthony Joshua, they’re going to different coaches and saying ‘this coach is going to work with him’.
‘But I told him at the beginning when he was undefeated ‘you’ve got some things you need to tweak because if you don’t then you may come up short’.’
Mayweather also reflected on AJ’s fight with Usyk in September and said that losing his world titles was ‘not an upset’.
The 44-year-old said: ‘That was not an upset. When you’ve got two guys with so much experience, like I said before, it’s just that Anthony Joshua was on TV more so everybody had seen him.
The 44-year-old boxing legend was a surprise attendee for Joshua’s fight in December last year
Mayweather also reflected on AJ’s fight with Usyk in September (above) and said that losing his world titles was ‘not an upset’ for the British star
‘Usyk is a hell of a fighter, a gold medalist if I’m not mistaken, but he was behind the scenes.
‘You had two guys with an amateur background, and one guy was not being seen while the other was, and we called it an upset – no, it’s just that Usyk was working behind the scenes while Joshua was in front of everybody.
‘Finally, they met up and Anthony Joshua came up short.’
The pair’s relationship has blossomed in recent years and even saw Mayweather turn up to Joshua’s clash with Kubrat Pulev last December.
Mayweather even offered Joshua some ringside instructions on his jab to help the Brit defended his IBF, WBA and WBO belts at the SSE Arena.
Since then, the American – who announced plans to move into coaching last year – has declared his interest in helping Joshua in the coming months.