British-Nigerian boxer, Anthony Joshua could not hold back his emotions as he broke down in tears in his post-match press conference on Sunday morning, August 21 after losing a much denied title march to Oleksandr Usyk.
Joshua, 32, on Saturday night suffered a second successive defeat to Usyk, 35, via split decision at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Saudi Arabia.
After the march, he threw the belts away, tried to lunge at someone from Usyk’s team, walked out of the ring and then came back to give a bizarre rant questioning how he lost to Usyk.
In the post match press conference, the former champion got emotional in as he explained this was “from the heart” and came as a result of him being “mad” at himself.
Speaking during a televised interview in the company of his manger in Fight Hub Anthony Joshua said, “It’s really hard for me to say I’m proud of myself. I don’t feel anything . I’m just”
Well I’m upset like really, like deep down in my heart”
(He tries to hold back the tears)
“When you’re trying to do things from the heart and everyone is just not understanding. It was just from the heart. I was mad at myself. Not anyone else just myself.
“So I thought, I’ve got to get out of here because I’m mad. Like anyone, when you’re angry, you might do stupid things.
“I was mad and then I realised, ‘Oh s***, this is sport. Let me do the right thing and come back.’
“I just spoke from my heart. It’s been so tough. You see AJ holding it together, yeah, and I’m a hustler so I try put things together. Try work hard and put things together and make sure my team’s good.
“But it comes at a cost, a big cost. It’ll never break me, but it takes real strength for it not to break me. And tonight, there’s a little crack in the armour when I took a loss.
“And I think you just saw me just upset. And with the speech, I was just speaking about where I come from. I was on the roads, really.
Usyk on his end, said he has “nothing but respect” for his opponent.
Usyk said: “I didn’t feel much at this time when he was a bit frustrated. Just common emotions. It’s all good. We just need to communicate a little bit.
“The good things that he said about me is something that I accept. But I don’t accept it deep to my heart because I want to stay a humble person.
“I don’t want my pride inside me to go bigger. That’s something like that. I don’t believe in good words.
“I have nothing but respect for Anthony Joshua. I saw him a little bit emotional and I saw him pulling some of my team-mates and that looked like a bareknuckle fight.”
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