Cruiserweight legend Tony Bellew says Anthony Joshua is the best athletic heavyweight of the past two decades and that the Nigeria-born Briton would be too much for Oleksandr Usyk when both boxers square up later this year.
Speaking to talkSPORT at Matchroom Boxing’s launch of Fight Camp, Bellew who finished his career by losing to Usyk as the Ukrainian went on to unify the division.
Now that Usyk has stepped up to heavyweight, he’s defeated Dereck Chisora by unanimous decision and finds himself the WBO’s mandatory challenger.
“I know exactly how good Usyk is. He’s an amazing talent. Best fighter I ever fought. But I don’t believe he’s big enough and dangerous enough to cause AJ problems.
“Well, he’s big enough to cause him problems, I don’t think he’d last long enough to defeat him. But, he will cause problems while he’s standing and he’s [AJ] going to have to get rid of him. He’ll put the pressure on, make him pay for every single thing he earns in there.
“AJ is the best athletic heavyweight I’ve seen in the last two decades. As an athlete, mate, he’s unbelievable. He’s an unbelievable specimen, he really is. The power he can move at, the speed he can move at, the dexterity; it’s unbelievable.
“He’s on another level to everybody else. He’s just got to keep improving on that boxing IQ, which he is. He showed that against Andy Ruiz Jr in the rematch. How unbelievable he was.
“In the Pulev fight, he went back a little bit and showed the old things he was doing and the way he broke down the big men with the speed that counts.
“But then he’s going to have to show something different against Oleksandr Usyk again. He’s going to have to box at times, put pressure on and he’ll have to get hit as well.
“So he’ll have to show different things that he hasn’t done in his career so far, but then again, he’s always improving, always getting better and it’s just fantastic to see,” Bellew said.