Joshua Doesn’t Consider Martin Toughest Opponent Of Career

By Keith Idec

Anthony Joshua can’t imagine Charles Martin emerging as the toughest opponent of his brief pro career.

The confident contender from Watford, England doesn’t think the 6-foot-5, 250-pound Martin will match Dillian Whyte’s intensity and expects to knock out the unbeaten IBF heavyweight champion “within six rounds” Saturday night at O2 Arena in London.

“He’s not my toughest opponent yet,” Joshua said during a conference call Monday. “But then again, styles make fights. So it might be a different story come April 9th. Styles do make fights. But right now, looking at Charles, he’s a counter-puncher, he’s laid back. He doesn’t work the full round, so it should be a nice, controlled fight.

“So I don’t think it’ll be like the Dillian Whyte fight. That was a tough fight. We worked, we were both hungry. The guy was very strong to the head. That was a tough fight, for sure. So I don’t think Charles will impose those kind of threats that Dillian did.”

The 26-year-old Joshua (15-0, 15 KOs), a 6-6, 250-pound power puncher who won the super heavyweight gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, stopped London’s Whyte (16-1, 13 KOs) in the seventh round December 12 at O2 Arena. The 29-year-old Martin (23-0-1, 21 KOs), of West Hollywood, California, won the then-vacant IBF championship by defeating Ukraine’s Vyacheslav Glazkov (21-1-1, 13 KOs) by third-round technical knockout because Glazkov suffered a knee injury January 16 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Their scheduled 12-round title fight between Martin and Joshua will be broadcast live by Showtime on Saturday at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT.

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.