British superstar Anthony Joshua has explained why he picked the strategy of trying to outbox Oleksandr Usyk.

Back in September, Joshua lost his WBO, IBF, IBO, WBA heavyweight titles when he dropped a twelve round unanimous decision to Usyk at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

A rematch is being positioned to take place in the first quarter of 2022.

After suffering his most recent defeat, Joshua received a lot of backlash over his attempt to outbox a highly skilled operator.

Most observers believe Joshua should have been highly aggressive, thrown more punches, and pushed the tempo of the bout.

In the upcoming rematch, Joshua does intend to put his foot on the gas and bring the fight to the smaller man - but he won't be reckless in his actions.

Joshua wants to avoid the scenario of burning out his engine by doing way too much in the first half.

“I’m a twelve round fighter and you saw in the other fight [Fury vs Wilder] a few weeks after that after two or three rounds the energy was depleted. It’s not really, what I thought, the right way of boxing. I started working on different elements of my boxing and boxing the same in round one as round twelve, learning to slip and roll shots better etc," Joshua told IFL TV.

“The obvious thing was to go out there and use a lot of my natural ability, but after a while in my career I started thinking that I want to scrap what I can naturally do and improve certain areas that I was weaker on. It’s definitely not lost time - I learned different things, the importance of the jab, the importance of the push away and the feint, the difference between counter-punching and counter attacking… I just divulged myself in the sweet science of boxing.

“But with that fight, it’s clear that styles make fights, and I adopted the wrong style. That’s not to say next time I’ll go out there and swing like a mad man, but I have certain strengths that will cause him and a lot of other people a lot of problems.”

“Remember that Usyk was a heavyweight from the WSP time and dropped down to cruiserweight. He probably realized that he’s one of the smaller heavyweights at that time and he’s built himself up. He had about 400 amateur fights and he’s seen people try and rough him up millions of times so just to have that one style is silly. I have one thing on my mind and that’s war, that’s murder - just to go out there and hurt the guy and take his soul to the point where he wants to give up. That’s what boxing’s about.

“I’ve learned that if you hit people constantly and keep on applying the same amount of pressure then they will realize you are not going anywhere and that you’re here to stay. That’s all I have in my mind at the minute - that one track and to stay on course and take this guy to places he doesn’t want to go."