by By Barry Holbrook: Johnny Nelson feels Anthony Joshua needs a year off from boxing to rest his mind and body after his two losses at the hands of Oleksandr Usyk.
Nelson thinks 33-year-old former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) needs to hit the “reset” button to rejuvenate himself to get back to the top he came from.
In the meantime, Nelson wants Joshua to visit different gyms, train with other trainers and train with their fighters. After a year of layoff, Joshua should be ready to resume his place at the top of the division.
On the other hand, Joshua has only been fighting once a year since 2020, and it’s debatable whether a year of layoff would lead to favorable results for him.
Joshua needs a year off
“Now AJ is at a crossroads now where he goes to different coaches and then he said, ‘I could take a year off. I think he should take a year off. Johnny Nelson told iFL TV about Anthony Joshua.
“I think he should sit down, resetspending time in many, many gyms, working out, immersing yourself in them, feeling comfortable and saying, “Now I’ve reset, now I can do this.”
“Look at what he has accomplished. He started boxing when he was 18,” Nelson said when asked if it was a good idea for Joshua, 33, to take a year off.
“He’s done some ridiculously good things, but he’s still broken. He’s still not above Usyk’s two losses. He still needs to regain his strength, his confidence.
“AJ, he needs to reset. He needs to think, “I need to come back here. He needs his motivation to fight, and he needs it for the right reasons because it’s not for the money. He has more money than you and I will ever spend,” Nelson said.
A long rest will do AJ good
“So he has to do this because he wants to do this because he has a purpose for doing this,” Johnny continued of Joshua needing a long, long rest. “He doesn’t just do anything to make up numbers. So those are the things that come into play right now.
“Derek [Chisora] comes out there to entertain everyone but gets his head smashed,” Nelson said of him wanting 38-year-old mate Derek Chisora to call him one day and retire after his loss to Tyson Fury on December 3.
“It’s to the point where even the fans are like, ‘Oh my God.’ AJ lost two fights on a rebound, and now he has to sit back and think, “I have to make the right decision.” He has to go through the head, not the heart, because if he fights with the heart, he is fighting for the wrong reason.
“He’ll decide, ‘I don’t want all that.’ So he makes the right decision to go train with different people, gain more experience in the gyms and find, find comfort.
“I think both fighters [Joshua and Chisora] need to look at the big picture. What I’m saying is AJ needs to rest, rest his mind, rest his body from competitive boxing to going back to the gyms and doing what he does now.
“It’s better for him to immerse himself in boxing and gyms everywhere, and train with different people to give himself that real boost of confidence to say, ‘I can do this’ because right now , you can’t say that his confidence is still very high because he’s been flipped twice.
“To be champion again, he has to come back down there. It’s my little race,” Nelson said.
