Anthony Joshua was convinced Oleksandr Usyk had beaten Tyson Fury in their undisputed heavyweight fight on Saturday evening.
Usyk won via split decision to beat Fury in Saudi Arabia and has added the WBC heavyweight belt to the IBF, WBO and WBA titles he initially took from Joshua in 2021.
Fury was ahead on two of the judges’ scorecards after eight rounds but Usyk stunned the Gypsy King with a huge overhand left in the ninth and the resulting flurry of unanswered punches forced the Brit to take a standing count.
All three judges scored the final round in Fury’s favour but by then it was too late as Usyk had won 115-112 and 114-113 on two scorecards.
Anthony Joshua was sat ringside alongside Cristiano Ronaldo to watch Usyk hand Fury the first loss of his professional career in a thrilling fight.
TNT Sports caught Anthony Joshua’s reaction moments after the final bell and when asked who he thought won the fight he immediately replied: ‘Usyk.’
When the man reacted with surprised and said, ‘really?’, Joshua replied, ‘huh, who do you think?’.
In an interview with iFL TV after the fight, Anthony Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn said: ‘He [Joshua] thought Usyk won.
‘I come over and said, ‘what do you think?’, he went, ‘Usyk won it easy’. I had it quite close, he went, ‘pfft’.
‘I thought Fury boxed fantastically well the first six rounds of the fight, I thought he was well on his way to boxing to a stoppage or a points decision, and Usyk… just incredible, I can’t believe it.’
Asked if Usyk’s win over Fury alters any potential plan for Joshua, Hearn replied: ‘Not really, this is their night tonight.
‘We want to regain the world heavyweight title, so whoever has got it has got it.
‘But the rematch is a big fight. That looks like that’ll be set for October, if both guys take it and we have to work on our plans, whether that’s Wembley, we’ll see what happens on June 1.’
Joshua is in contention to fight the winner of the June 1 fight between Deontay Wilder and Zhilei Zhang.