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Joe Joyce has accused his friend turned rival, Anthony Joshua, of leaking out an edited version of their past sparring session.
He feels the footage was edited to showcase Joshua’s best moments during the session.
The two heavyweights are very familiar with each other from their days as amateurs under Team GB.
Now that both are in the pro ranks, Joshua is a former two-time champion and Joyce is the WBO’s mandatory challenger.
If Joshua reclaims the WBO, IBF, IBO, WBA titles in his upcoming rematch with Oleksandr Usyk – then there will be a realistic chance of a showdown with Joyce.
However, if Joshua loses – then Joyce will shift his focus on securing a fight with Usyk.
The big puncher explains that portions of the leaked sparring footage was nothing more than drills they worked on for certain in-ring scenarios.
“He leaked, or his team leaked, footage of sparring, all his best bits,’ Joyce told Metro.co.uk. “Some of the sparring I have seen out there is from when we were drilling certain things. He can only throw left hooks, he can only throw straight arm shots, you can only throw bent arm shots, certain scenarios like that.
“I don’t know what is going with Joshua these days, I haven’t spoken to him or seen him in a long time. Something has gone to his head. He seems to be a lot more vocal on Twitter and I guess I kind of took the bait. Let’s see what happens. I would love to fight him one day and one day soon I hope. Let’s see how he gets on with Usyk and then we will be in touch.
“But if he loses to Uysk, I might think: ‘Why would I fight you?’ I want belts. He has already got the belts and lost them. I want to win the belts and keep them. Over the years when I was on the Team GB squad, I wasn’t a threat to him. As a pro, he was always up here, and I was down there, so it was the case of catching up. Now we are on the same level. Now he is seeing me as that threat. Some of his recent performances haven’t been so good – maybe he is not being as corporate and he is letting his ego go.”