Lennox Lewis is not sure Anthony Joshua should be fighting at all.
Joshua was floored twice inside the first round by Kristian Prenga in Jeddah on July 25, the second knockdown coming before the bell, and needed until the second to knock him out. Lewis, speaking to The Ring from Jamaica, was not reassured.
Does he really belong in the ring right now? A virtual novice put him on the ground twice in the first round. Is that it, have we seen the last of him? It’s not like he’s his old self.
Prenga is not quite a novice. He arrived with 20 wins, all inside the distance. But Lewis is weighing it against what Joshua faces next.
Tyson Fury stopped Mariusz Wach in seven rounds in Thailand 24 hours before Joshua fought. Lewis read that differently.
I think Fury boxes to the level of his opposition. He’s trying to keep sharp for Joshua, the right thing to do, and needed to have a tick-over fight. His going some more rounds in his legs is what he wanted and did, so just a warm-up for another fight.
On the fight itself, he was blunt about what it now is.
Obviously, this has turned into a money thing. The fight should have happened years ago, but they want to make the fight, and still can make some money out of it. You can’t say either is at their best now.
Definitely, Fury is closer, but both are shadows of their former selves. I’d side with Fury. He showed me more in his two fights than Joshua has recently.
Joshua is 36 and was fighting for the first time since a car crash in Nigeria on December 29 in which he was injured and two members of his team, Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, were killed. He has since moved to a new training team.
Lewis knows the decision he is describing. He retired in 2003 after Vitali Klitschko badly hurt him, declining a rematch rather than continue.
Joshua and Fury are contracted for November. The venue has still not been announced.
