{"id":1183082,"date":"2022-08-18T17:26:40","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T17:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/08\/18\/anthony-joshua-says-the-belts-dont-mean-st\/"},"modified":"2022-08-18T17:26:40","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T17:26:40","slug":"anthony-joshua-says-the-belts-dont-mean-st","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/08\/18\/anthony-joshua-says-the-belts-dont-mean-st\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Joshua says the belts don&#8217;t &#8220;mean s**t&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>By <strong>Barry Holbrook:<\/strong> Anthony Joshua says it doesn\u2019t mean anything that the Ring Magazine title will be up for grabs on Saturday in his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.<\/p>\n<p>Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) feels that the alphabet governing bodies are just looking to collect sanctioning fees from the fighters. As such, he doesn\u2019t think the titles mean anything to him or define him.<\/p>\n<p>AJ is right. The boxing public knows who the best fighters are at heavyweight, and all the useless titles that the four governing bodies have created are meaningless.<\/p>\n<p>You can argue that there should only be one world title, which shouldn\u2019t require sanctioning fees the champions need to pay to hold it.<\/p>\n<p>If there were no titles on the line for Saturday\u2019s Usyk vs. Joshua II rematch, the boxing public wouldn\u2019t care, as it\u2019s a fight that fans want to see regardless. Having titles on the line doesn\u2019t add value to the battle. On the contrary, casual fans are oblivious to which belts are up for grab.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em><strong>Not much; it doesn\u2019t mean s***<\/strong><\/em>.<em><strong> None of them do<\/strong><\/em>,\u201d said Anthony Joshua when asked his thoughts on the Ring Magazine title being up for grabs for his fight against Oleksandr Usyk.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Anthony Joshua gives his honest thoughts on the heavyweight world title belts\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/sfHYdqLpHt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/sfHYdqLpHt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MichaelBensonn\/status\/1560298286614859778?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">August 18, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201c<em><strong>They want to take my sanctioning fees, and they make me look good<\/strong><\/em> when I go to the schools to show the kids. \u2018Look at my belt.\u2019 I\u2019m the man. You\u2019re the man,\u201d said Joshua.<\/p>\n<p>AJ is right about the governing bodies wanting to take sanctioning fees, and that money adds up when a champion holds more than one belt. If Joshua defeats Usyk, he would be doing himself a good favor by vacating the three belts and holding onto the Ring Magazine strap.<\/p>\n<p>At this point in Joshua\u2019s career, it\u2019s unclear whether he cares about becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion. If so, Joshua will need to hold onto the three belts and face WBC champion Tyson Fury if he chooses to come out of retirement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em><strong>All that stuff for me is it\u2019s here today and gone tomorrow<\/strong><\/em>,\u201d said Joshua about the belts. \u201cI just <strong><em>never felt these belts made me<\/em><\/strong>. Eddie [Hearn] said he needs to speak to the sanctioning bodies now. Smooth some things over,\u201d said Joshua.<\/p>\n<p><noscript><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"N6aL_uMWQTk\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Oleksandr Usyk vs Anthony Joshua 2 Main Event Press Conference\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N6aL_uMWQTk?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><\/noscript><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Barry Holbrook: Anthony Joshua says it doesn\u2019t mean anything that the Ring Magazine title will be up for grabs on Saturday in his rematch with Oleksandr Usyk. Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) feels that the alphabet governing bodies are just looking to collect sanctioning fees from the fighters. As such, he doesn\u2019t think the titles [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1182184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1183082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-premier-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1183082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1183082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1183082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1183082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}