Anthony Joshua took a shot at Carl Froch’s resume as he sent a voice note into his podcast.
‘AJ’ cheekily asked Froch for his feelings on not beating a reigning champion to win his first career world title.
Joshua bids to win the world heavyweight title for a third time when he takes on Daniel Dubois in September.
Carl Froch has shared a savage voice note from Anthony Joshua after the pair rowed publicly in recent weeks. In the note, two-time former unified heavyweight world champion Joshua appeared to question Froch’s first world title victory, which came in his 2008 triumph over Jean Pascal.
This episode is the latest escalation of a war of words between the duo, which ramped up back in June when Froch claimed that Joshua was “spoiled” and had “lost a bit of class”, following his announcement of an upcoming fight against fellow British heavyweight Daniel Dubois.
A series of angry text exchanges between the pair had been leaked in the aftermath, and their relations have only served to become frostier afterwards. Joshua took his latest swipe at the Nottingham man by sending a savage voice note into his Froch on Fighting podcast.
In the opening segment of Froch’s latest upload, his wife Rachel introduced a voice note from “Anthony, aged 34, from London.” ‘The Cobra’ knew who it was from immediately.
“What’s happening? How’s your week going? How’s your podcast going? Quick question – when you boxed Jean Pascal for your first world title in Nottingham actually, Tyson Fury actually made his pro debut on that card, you fought for a vacant title right? So you didn’t beat a champion. What do you feel about that? Do you feel that you were regarded as a champion because you fought for a vacant one? So the title not being there, it would have just been a normal fight. But they threw a title in the air and you became champion.”
When Joshua claimed that the WBC had just ‘thrown their (super-middleweight) title in the air’, he was not-so-subtly questioning the validity of Froch’s win, given that he didn’t beat a reigning world champion to win the belt.
“You didnt beat a champion, to become champion if you get what I mean. Do you feel like that win, not irrelevant, but its not highly regarded the same as if you were to have gone and beat a world champion? How do you feel about that fight with Jean Pascal?”.
Froch’s counterclaim was that he was waiting for longer than expected on a potential fight with Joe Calzaghe in 2008, and so felt that he had no choice but to fight for a vacant belt against Pascal in the intervening period: “Did I feel like world champion? I had the green and the gold belt. When I woke up and saw the belt at the bottom of my bed in the morning, I felt like a world champion.
“I know what he means. I didn’t beat the champion to become the champion. That’s probably why he conveniently didn’t ask about the IBF title (which Froch won by defeating Lucian Bute in May 2012).”
Carl Froch has once again criticised Tyson Fury’s boxing resume, dealing the ‘hard truth’ about the Gypsy King’s career.
While Joshua’s jab appeared to be an attempt to continue their feud, Froch then attempted to pour cold water on any future bitterness between himself and ‘AJ’ by declaring at the end of the podcast that they had buried the hatchet.
Joshua is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to claim a third world heavyweight title against IBF Heavyweight Champion Dubois on the 21st of September. The Watford-born slugger goes into the bout looking to register his fourth-successive victory since his defeat to Oleksandr Usyk in August 2022.
Froch enjoyed his own distinguished career in the ring between 2002 and 2014, with his last professional outing being a knockout victory against George Groves in front of 80,000 people at Wembley Stadium. Joshua will enter that same venue in two months looking to record a similar triumph against Dubois.
