Former Mike Tyson trainer, Ronnie Shields, has taken a swipe on Anthony Joshua, saying the boxer became heavyweight champion “without knowing certain things” to do in the ring.
Joshua who arrived US soil few days back in search for a new coach, trained with Shields, Robert Garcia, and Canelo Alvarez coach Eddy Reynoso.
The British ex-world ruler aims to learn from a second career loss suffered against Oleksandr Usyk last month. The rematch is scheduled to go down in the spring.
Upon witnessing Joshua in action, Shields echoed what many people have been saying about AJ for years.
“The first thing he told me when he came here, he told me ‘listen, I know people don’t think I’m a dog, I’m just a pure boxer, look I’m going to be a dog in this next fight.’ And that’s his words,” Shields told reporters.
“He told me, ‘I’m going to be a dog in this fight (Usyk rematch). I just need you to show me how to be the best dog that you can teach me to be’.
“That answered the question for me because my thing to him was ‘why did you box the whole time? And he said he thought he could outbox him. That was the game plan.”
“I just pointed out some things that I thought he should have done that he didn’t do. There’s something I was showing him that he said, ‘man, I was never taught to do this by anyone.’
“It surprises me that a guy who was the heavyweight champion of the world doesn’t know certain things,” added the respected coach.
Joshua has been trained by Rob McCracken since his amateur days and has met with several American-based trainers as he considers a shake-up to his coaching set-up following his defeat by Oleksandr Usyk.
The British heavyweight has faced calls to part ways with long-time coach Rob McCracken since losing his WBA (Super), WBO and IBF titles to Usyk last month.
“I guess he didn’t feel it was the right game plan against Usyk so he wanted to make a change,” said Shields.
Shields has worked with a slew of heavyweight champions including Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.
