The latest instalment of the popular “The Gloves Are Off” show aired on Sky Sports last night, and heavyweights Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko sat across one another as Johnny Nelson peppered them with questions regarding their fast-approaching Wembley showdown.
There was a big dose of mutual respect, as there has been between these two all along, but former king Klitschko did go as far as to call reigning IBF champ Joshua a “copy” of himself. Wladimir, who also spoke of how he tried to sign up Joshua after the Londoner won the 2012 Olympic gold medal, said he is “obsessed” with beating Joshua on April 29.
“We look alike, size-wise,” Klitschko said when sizing Joshua up. “Arm length is pretty much the same. Biceps? Maybe in this smaller t-shirt (Joshua was wearing) you look better. Punching power, we don’t need to talk about that. There are a lot of equal things. Preparation, camp, altitude training, nutrition. The more I look at it, it’s a copy. Different, but in a certain way it’s a copy. But I’m obsessed with my goal to raise my hands after the fight. After having the experience in my last fight (losing to Tyson Fury) I’m not happy with that. But this obsession, in other words, is like a threat going through my heart and mind, and I totally love it.”
Could this be the most focused and determined Wladimir Klitschko ever, or in a long, long time? Talk is of course just that, talk, but Klitschko really does have that air of supreme confidence and self-assurance about him that only the winners have. Joshua isn’t exactly a bag of nerves himself, also coming across as cool and calm, but Klitschko has been there, at super-fight level, so many times, it all seems to be second nature to him.
Opinion has shifted back and forth a number of times on this fight. After last night’s verbal sparring, the slight edge goes to “Dr. Steel Hammer.” But will the fight deliver in the excitement stakes?