THESE, in case you somehow happened to miss them, were just some of the sounds emanating from Anthony Joshuaโs corner during the 12 rounds he shared with Oleksandr Usyk in London on September 25: โBrilliant, AJโฆ brilliant, AJโฆ brilliant, AJโฆโ They were heard, these sounds, when Joshua either landed a punch, missed a punch, was hit by a punch, or was hurt by a punch. They were issued by a voice belonging not to Robert McCracken, Joshuaโs long-time head coach, but a voice rarely heard in other corners, on other nights. They were as prominent in the last round as they were in the first. Round one: โBrilliant, AJ.โ Round 12: โBrilliant, AJ.โ
Such encouragement would have been fine, or at least less conspicuous, had the rallying cry soundtracked a dominant Anthony Joshua victory. Yet the constant affirmation being delivered to Joshua that night appeared wholly out of place, coming as it did during a fight in which the heavyweight was soundly outboxed and seemed at no point to be in the ascendency, much less โbrilliantโ. Which is to say, to hear someone assert Joshuaโs brilliance throughout โ a decisive loss, remember โ was akin to hearing someone start yelling congratulations and applauding at a funeral. It was, at best, misguided and confusing, while, at worst, an indictment, perhaps, of Joshuaโs need to be fed mistruths when reality strikes.
Either way, Joshua, like so many before him, finds himself now taste-testing the gyms of America in search of different voices and different faces to see him through a potential second fight against Usyk in 2022. Whether or not he continues working with McCracken, the architect of so many great Joshua nights both as an amateur and a pro, one thing seems clear: to achieve a different result, Joshua understands the importance of being armed with fresh ideas.
A well-trodden path, especially following a defeat, it might not be a bad thing, either. For, in the end, as much as we laud fighters who stick with one coach throughout their career, there is probably something to be said for trying new things and looking to maximise potential by collecting as much experience and information as possible. When done right, it appears the wise, mature, and brave thing to do. When timed correctly, it can sometimes elevate a fighter to a whole new level.
Tony Bellew, another Brit familiar with Oleksandr Usykโs artistry, decided he needed a change in his career when losing a fight for the WBC light-heavyweight belt against Adonis Stevenson in 2013. As well as knowing that would be his final outing as an 175-pound light-heavy, Bellew conceded fresh ideas were required for him to later fulfil his potential as a cruiserweight. โHe lost to Stevenson and then in the December asked me to go have a chat with him at his house, which was when he asked me to coach him,โ said Dave Coldwell, the man whose fresh ideas Bellew sought. โThe fighter has to respect the trainer. Thatโs so important. Our first fight was against [Valery] Brudov and in that fight he was pi**ing it after about six rounds and then he started swinging and once he started doing that he got caught and all of a sudden it was a real fight and Brudov fancied it. โHe came back to the corner and I gave him a massive boll**king. But he understood and then got back to it. He responded to it in the right way rather than think, โWho are you to talk to me like that?โ That happened a few times with Tony but, to his credit, he always responded the right way. If he didnโt respect and trust his coach, those instances would have got his back up. Itโs one thing knowing what a fighter needs to do but itโs another thing getting them to trust you enough to then do it.โ
Though established, and though having fought for a major belt at light-heavyweight, Bellew remained malleable enough and hungry enough to still be open to both learning and constructive criticism. His baggage, scars, and preconceived ideas did not affect the intake of new information.
โItโs like when Ryan Rhodes came to me after spending 22 years with the Ingles,โ Coldwell said. โThey kind of have to see it as a fresh start and new chapter rather than constantly questioning and doubting and being closed to new ideas.
โWhen Iโm teaching somebody in training, and showing them what I want them to do, I explain to them why I want them to do it. I ask them, โDo you understand that?โ I then have them demonstrate it and itโs then a case of, โDo you feel that? Do you feel the difference?โ When they say โyesโ, they believe in what youโre trying to do. Itโs not just a case of telling somebody they need to change this, this and this, and then thatโs it. They have to feel it. Once they feel it, they believe it. Then they want to work at it more. They trust it. Tony had 100% trust in what I wanted him to do.โ
Sometimes trust is a result of familiarity, while other times it could be a by-product of awe or the respect a fighter has for their coach. Certainly, with Chris Eubank Jnr and Roy Jones Jnr, a relatively new fighter-trainer partnership, one gets the sense a lot of the trust there stems from the years Eubank Jnr spent watching videos of Jones Jnr growing up and admiring his skills as one of the greatest boxers of the modern era. To a lesser extent, too, the same could be said for Callum Smith and James โBuddyโ McGirt, another recent fighter-trainer link-up few would have seen coming this time last year.
โAt this point itโs just about finding something you see that he can do and get him comfortable doing it, but doing it his way and fitting into what he does,โ said McGirt. โOnce he gets that, weโll then make minor adjustments. He practices things over and over, and asks me about it over and over, and I say to him, โListen, you donโt have to do it exactly the way that I do it. The key is to get the same result.โ
โOne, Callum has a good work ethic, two, he is willing to learn, and, three, there is more to him than meets the eye. This guy has the ability to do everything. Heโs very athletic. I just think heโs been getting away with his power, which is good, but he has the ability to do so many other things.
โHis combination punching, for one. I think he has a tendency to favour that left hook. There are also other things he can do that he hasnโt needed to do. He was winning fights with what he had and he didnโt need more than that. The key now is to add a little flavour to it and show people a different Callum โ not different, but the same with a little more added on.โ
McGirt and Coldwell were blessed, in many ways, by the fact they had, or have, time to play with when getting hold of established fighters coming off losses. There was, for them, a natural rebuilding process. There were comeback fights planned. Bellew boxed six times under Coldwell before knocking out Ilunga Makabu in three rounds to win the WBC cruiserweight belt, whereas Smith has boxed once since losing to Saul โCaneloโ รlvarez, stopping Lenin Castillo inside two rounds, and will presumably have additional fights before again challenging for another title.
โYou need a lot of patience on both sides,โ said Coldwell. โIn sparring, Tony would be fine, patient, smart, and then if he got cracked, the red mist would come down and he would want to take their head off. It took a lot of talking and a lot of boll**king and a lot of time to change that and for him to realise he could take a shot and understand that it had happened and not immediately look to rush back in like an idiot and get them back. That took a couple of years but once the penny dropped it was so much easier and it worked.โ
Anthony Joshua, in contrast, wonโt be granted this same grace period. He will instead be thrown right back into the arms of his abuser, this person from whom many feel he should be protected. That decision could prove problematic not only for Joshua, the one who ultimately has to make the necessary improvements to garner a different result, but also whoever finds himself in Joshuaโs corner that night. โWhen George [Groves] came to me, it was probably for two reasons,โ said Paddy Fitzpatrick, the Irishman who cornered George Groves for his two fights against Carl Froch, the first in 2013, the second in 2014. โOne, Adam [Booth, Grovesโ previous coach] had decided their relationship had run its course, so he had to get somebody and he had to do it with only nine weeks to go. Maybe if he had months and months, he would have gone for somebody else. But โ and this is number two โ he came to me because he knew that I had added in bits over time โ for the [James] DeGale fight, and for the [Glen] Johnson fight โ and he felt comfortable thinking I could add something to him for the Froch fight.
โWhile that belief was there, I believe we made improvements. When that goes, though, you stop making improvements. You could be trained by God Himself, but if you start to not like God, youโll stop listening. โThe worst thing a coach could do with AJ now, with four or five months to get him ready, is try to change him technically. You will, at this point, just be trying to change him mentally and make him believe he has every one of the tools required to beat Usyk.
โWhoever is there, whether itโs McCracken or someone new, they have to be a coach and psychologist all in one. If they understand that, theyโll be a psychologist first and boxing coach second. Otherwise, they will point out all his technical limitations and he will doubt everything.โ
โAs a coach you canโt have an ego and think youโre going to completely strip a fighter down and rebuild them,โ Coldwell agreed. โYou canโt go in there thinking everything they did before was bulls**t and you now have all the answers. Youโve got to understand what they are very good at, and what has made them successful, and maintain that. You then look at the mistakes they have made, the things that have stopped them getting where they want to be, and eradicate them while enhancing what they are good at. Both fighter and coach have to be open to change and compromise.
โIf you like training fighters who are very slick and use plenty of footwork, but youโre dealing with a fighter whose key attributes mean he goes in there trying to knock his opponent out, you canโt take that away from them. But youโve got to put intelligence into the aggression.
โWith Tony, I used to call it โintellectual bombingโ. He was known as the โBomberโ and his intention was to always go in there and knock somebody out but I wanted him to be smart about it. He was still intending to knock people out, we never changed that, but we did it in a much smarter way as he went along.โ
As for Joshua, Fitzpatrick feels the smart thing to do would be to place a greater emphasis on having him believe he can beat Usyk in the return with the tools already at his disposal as opposed to convincing him he can, at 32, become something else entirely.
He explained: โFreddie [Roach] used to say to me, โIf you ever take on an experienced fighter, it will take you longer to adjust him than it would an inexperienced fighter because if you try to change him too much, even if itโs the right thing to do, mentally he will put up a block. He will think, โNo, the fighter I am already got me to where I am.โ AJ is a two-time heavyweight champion of the world. If youโre telling him that A was wrong all along, and he has to now change to B, he wonโt accept that. He wonโt allow you to start him again like that.
โWhat you have to do is gradually tweak the technical things that need to be tweaked and hope that the more he starts to believe in you, the more you can tweak from week to week. But it needs to be mental adjustments in the main. In fairness to Rob, heโs not going to get the big mental adjustments because Rob is still the same dude.
โIn the rematch with George, Carl [Froch] did the best thing he could do, which was stay with Rob but take on a psychologist. It made him believe he had done something to deal with Georgeโs mind games. It allowed him to feel more mentally settled so he could go into that rematch with the full belief that the way the first fight went had more to do with his own issues than anything George did well.
โUltimately, whatever mentally Rob can give Joshua, he has already given him. He would have given him his best from the very beginning and he has known him going back to the amateurs. That is a fantastic thing, because both men know each other completely, but when the fighter then hits not one but two road blocks thereโs something mental there that needs improving because itโs too late to improve anything technically. Now he needs something completely different from a mental point of view.โ
While it is unlikely to be something Joshua will admit, thereโs every chance he has looked at the recent success of Tyson Fury, his great rival, and begrudgingly learned a thing or two. Fury, after all, although previously criticised by Joshua for his questionable training habits and fluctuating weight, has in the past couple of years made the necessary changes to his own team and reaped the rewards.
โTyson and I would talk very sporadically,โ said Andy Lee, one of two coaches Fury brought onboard after drawing with Deontay Wilder in 2018. โIf we met in person we would have a chat, of course, but we wouldnโt be regularly on the phone to each other or anything like that. One day I got a call from him โ his name popped up on the phone โ and it took me back a little bit. I answered it and we were talking, and I was thinking, โRight, where is this conversation going?โ We were shooting the breeze, but I wasnโt sure what it was really all about. He then says, โAndy, I need a new coach. I need to bring somebody into the camp with a bit more experience.โ
โWhat youโve got to take into consideration is the personalities, the egos and who can work with him, keeping in mind that Ben [Davison] was [at the time] to still be involved. We talked though everybody and the one person I said after a while was Sugar Hill. He then said, โAndy, that was exactly who I was thinking about myself.โ I told him I thought it would be a good match and that the personalities would get on well. I said, โYou know him already, so thatโs sorted, and he will work together well with Ben. But he will have you punching correctly, your balance will improve and youโll be a lot more imposing.โ He then asked me to call Sugar Hill for him.
โA few days later, once Tyson and Sugar Hill agreed to work together, Tyson texted me and asked if I would come and help as well. As a very young coach, an infant of a coach, training two guys at very different levels to where Tyson is, I just couldnโt say no.โ
Fitzpatrick found himself in a similar position when asked by Groves to start training him nine weeks before fighting Carl Froch. He then also experienced the other side of the fighter-trainer merry-go-round when Groves, after losing three major fights, jumped shipped to Shane McGuigan in 2016.
โIn Georgeโs mind he did not lose that first [Froch] fight,โ said Fitzpatrick. โHoward Foster stopped it. He still considered himself undefeated. Even after that fight he was telling people, โI wonโt ever lose.โ Thatโs the type of man George was mentally and thatโs a really healthy point of view for a fighter. If youโve fully convinced yourself of that, youโre a hard man to beat.
โAfter we parted ways, George was intelligent enough and also knew he wasnโt weakening himself if he told himself everything that had happened in his career up to that point โ all the negatives โ were not his fault. That means he still was the man he was and still had what it took to move forward and win a world title. The first loss was because of Howard [Foster], the second was because of a punch from the gods, and the third was because of me.
โHe then changed himself. When coming to the ring for that first fight back [after losing to Badou Jack], he was wearing black and it was like he had shed the old George. He got rid of all his old attachments. It was clever. He was almost playing a game with himself. But he did it in a positive manner to psychologically improve himself.
โThatโs the same situation AJ is in right now.โ
Rest assured, whether what follows is a change of coach or a change of shorts, the last thing Anthony Joshua needs to be told right now is that he is brilliant. Comforting though that may be on down days, a better idea, in the long run, would be to instead remind him of times when he was previously brilliant and then, crucially, teach him how to be brilliant once again. It still might not be enough to secure victory in the Usyk rematch but, having been bereft of them in September, itโs an idea at least.