‘Anthony Joshua beat me on the 2012 London Olympics – now I would like my revenge’

Anthony Joshua overcame Zhilei Zhang on his solution to successful tremendous heavyweight gold on the 2012 Olympic Games in London. But the Chinese star is now out for revenge after watching Joshua defeat Otto Wallin in Saudi Arabia on Saturday evening.

Joshua dropped 2008 Beijing Olympics silver medalist Zhang within the second spherical of his second battle on the London Games earlier than seeing off Ivan Dychko within the semi-finals and Roberto Cammarelle within the ultimate. And the Watford-born ace went on to develop into a two-time unified WBO, IBF, and WBA heavyweight champion after turning skilled.

Joshua, 34, was in dominant kind throughout his most up-to-date battle, a showdown towards Wallin which befell in Riyadh. And the battle was known as off after the fifth spherical because the Briton claimed his third win of the yr.

Zhang, who turned 40 in May, was clearly taking note of Joshua’s newest bout. And after the battle, he took to social media to put down the gauntlet to his 2012 conqueror. “I lost to a better man 11 years ago in the Olympics,” Zhang wrote on Instagram. “I’m happy we have both come a long way, gone through ups and downs in life. Now it’s time to do this for the sport of boxing and give it to the fans around the world. Let’s get it on.”

Joshua had been tipped to arrange a showdown with Deontay Wilder in early 2024. But he’s now anticipated to go head-to-head with Croatian star Filip Hrgovic after Wilder suffered a shock defeat to Joseph Parker simply earlier than Joshua took to the ring within the Middle East.

And Zhang known as Joshua out for a second time as he instructed FightHype: “I’d like to go after Joshua because he’s probably looking at Hrgovic as a potential fight. But when you look at Hrgovic’s resume, he was gifted a win. He beat me to become the mandatory challenger, and he had two pretty low-level fights to stay busy because he’s so scared to lose that position.

“He fought Demsey McKean from Australia for 12 rounds. He kept hitting him in the back of the head and, right now, I can call Hrgovic a professional in hitting on the back of the head because in every fight in every round, he’s hitting the guy on the back of the head.

“When you look at Joshua’s potential fight with Hrgovic, I just don’t think it makes that much commercial sense because if he comes to me, the whole of England will be watching, and the whole of China will be watching, and the whole Middle East. Everybody will be watching.

“Joshua’s past opponents are [Oleksandr] Usyk, southpaw, Otto Wallin, southpaw. And I think he’s very comfortable and he’s been really good at fighting southpaws, and I’m a southpaw. So, let’s get it. Credit to Parker, but I want to get Joshua next.”