Anthony Joshua’s planned warm-up fight before a potential showdown with Tyson Fury could be a serious error, according to trainer Shane McGuigan.
Joshua is set to face Kristian Prenga on July 25 as a tune-up ahead of a possible later-year clash with Fury. He is returning to the ring after a tragic car accident that killed two of his friends, and will use the next camp and the Prenga bout to shake off ring rust and fine-tune for the big fight.
But McGuigan, one of the UK’s leading coaches, warned that the extra fight may do more harm than good. He said training camps are lonely and that Joshua needs a major challenge to re-ignite his motivation — and that big challenge would be Fury. McGuigan called Joshua a “confidence fighter,” which is why he believes an immediate big fight would be better than a tune-up.
McGuigan reflected on the emotional toll of preparing without those who used to be in Joshua’s camp, calling it “a horrible experience” and suggesting the accident would have been a huge emotional blow. He argued that another routine win to merely go through the motions before the Fury fight won’t make Joshua a better fighter and could instead expose “a lot of cracks in what’s really going on.”
The trainer also commented on Fury possibly taking an interim bout himself, suggesting Fury might do so to unsettle opponents. McGuigan said that if Fury were in Joshua’s position he would take the big fight straight away rather than add warm-ups, recalling how a planned undisputed fight was scuppered in 2021 when Joshua lost to Oleksandr Usyk after negotiations.
McGuigan warned that the pair should not risk missing the fight again, noting the unpredictable nature of boxing — injuries, clashes and other setbacks can derail plans. He dismissed pre-fight disputes over ring walk order, A-side/B-side designation and similar posturing as ego-driven distractions, saying what matters is the “36 minutes” inside the ropes.
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