By Amosu Adeboye
Anthony Joshua will try and take Deontay Wilder’s strengths away if they finally lock horns in 2020, says his trainer Angel Fernandez.
The Brit has long craved a showdown with WBC heavyweight champion Wilder, which would crown the first undisputed chief of the division in 20 years.
Andy Ruiz Jr temporarily derailed Joshua’s hopes of sweeping up all four belts when he delivered his first professional defeat back in June.
Yet in the rematch Ruiz proved no match for AJ, who produced the finest boxing display of his career to reclaim his WBA ‘Super’, IBF and WBO titles.
Now Ruiz has been jabbed to one side, talk of a mega-bout with Wilder has reignited.
The Bronze Bomber first needs to come through a rematch of his own on February 22; which is by no means a given against Tyson Fury who many feel beat him the first time around.
If he can see off Fury, though, the path will be clear for Wilder to meet Joshua in one of the most anticipated heavyweight battles of the century.
Fernandez, the Spanish coach brought into Joshua’s camp for the Ruiz rematch, sheds light on how team AJ would approach a potential fight with Wilder.
“It’s a difficult one. But the thing is, you have to take the strengths from Wilder away,” he exclusively tells Starsport .
“The mistakes are going to be there, so you have to expose that, but you also have to take the strengths away.
“I’m not going to tell you a way of how I would fight Wilder or how I would not fight Wilder, it’s kind of like break him down with the analysis he’s done with the team, bring in sparring partners, and then it’s like a process.
“As you see the sparring going, you do some adjustments here, some adjustments there. You rewatch the fight again. It’s a process.
“That’s how it’s been done with Ruiz this time. As a camp, sparring partners, things were changing. ‘I want you to do this’ or ‘I want you to do that’.
“And with Wilder, we know how dangerous he is with his right hand. With [Luis] Ortiz, Ortiz should really beat him, but I think his age plays a big part in it.
“I think if Ortiz had been 28 years old, I think he would have beat Wilder.”
