During a conversation with Fight Hub TV, analyst Timothy Bradley shares his take on this weekend’s heavyweight title rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua. Here Bradley explains what changes he thinks Joshua needs to make in order to be successful in this rematch with so much on the line, and breaks down how his own experience in sequels proved to be difficult. Check out some of what Bradley had to say below.
“My trilogy with Pacquiao got harder each fight,” Bradley said. “First fight definitely was tough, but the second fight mentally was hard for me to overcome. Like I felt like I had to be something that I wasn’t. If I was to give Joshua a tip, it’s just that, yes, you’ve got to be mentally tough. Yes, you’ve got to be physically ready, but don’t lose yourself. Don’t lose who you are, don’t lose what got you there.
“Joshua has skills, he’s shown that he can adapt and make changes. He did it against Ruiz. He’s in there with an experienced trainer that definitely, probably, get him in shape, definitely give him some Xs and Os to where he can find these holes and tendencies that Usyk has.
“To me Usyk is a left-handed fighter — the back hand, that’s it. That’s the punch you got to worry about…and that’s the thing, you can bait Joshua…I mean, attacking the body, if you got a moving target you have to attack the body. You guys hear me say that all the time. He can do it from the outside, he can do it long range, he can cut him off where he’s gonna go, but he just got to set traps for this guy.
“If Joshua is gonna win the fight he’s got to hurt Usyk, and he got to hurt him badly…I saw (Joshua) running — a lot of heavyweights don’t run, bro. A lot of heavyweights, they shy away from running. They rather walk or walk on some kind of stair master, heavyweights are lazy, but I actually saw him putting in road work — and it’s a video so I don’t know if it’s just set up but I’m pretty sure he’s extremely serious about this and he understands that ‘hey, this is everything.’
“(Joshua) definitely understands the task at hand and for Usyk, man, the first fight wasn’t easy, bro. Like after the fight Usyk probably had to take about a week off, like literally rest his fuckin’ body because he’s a small heavyweight, bro. He’s little and enduring those type of punches, physically and mentally having to take that and absorb those type of shots — no joke. So he understands it’s gonna be a tough fight, that’s why you see him bulking up.
“Joshua knows, Joshua understands what he did. He needs to just worry about not giving in. Don’t give in, shit start getting rough, things start getting hectic in there, do not give up. You got to stay to the plan, believe in his corner and believe in his conditioning.”