Two years on from his Olympic gold medal-winning performance at London 2012, Anthony Joshua was quickly establishing himself as one of the biggest talents in boxing. In seven professional fights, the talented 24-year-old had picked up seven dominant victories.
Joshua may have lacked a huge amount of experience, but plenty in the boxing world were starting to notice his efforts. In August 2014, the LAD from Watford was about to take note from the very best.
Ahead of his fight with Kubrat Pulev on 6 September, a certain Wladimir Klitschko invited Joshua to spar with him as the 38-year-old put his WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles on the line at the O2 World Arena in Hamburg.
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You can see the experienced Klitschko giving the Brit some undoubtedly invaluable experience as Joshua listened attentively.
Credit: Youtube/Boxing.ua
As we all know, three years on from that training camp in Hamburg, Anthony Joshua went on to defeat the Ukrainian in front of 90,000 people at Wembley.
Klitschko's advice had clearly had an effect on the 27-year-old. As you can see in the clip. there is a mutual respect between both parties. It just reiterates the 41-year-old's professionalism and character.
Klitschko may have lost by stoppage but arguably only enhanced his reputation at the 'old' age of 41 and by not having been in the ring for 17 months.
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The former champ fought better than he had when he lost his titles in November 2015 to Tyson Fury and was knocked down three times in the fight.
Quite how he got up twice in the 11th before the eventual stoppage was beyond everyone
2014 was arguably Joshua's most important year. A somewhat rookie Joshua was on the undercard for the fight between Carl Froch and George Groves.
AJ defeated Matt Legg in 83 seconds in a super middleweight encounter for his sixth professional victory, and was in the early days of his meteoric rise to prominence.
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After that straightforward win over Legg, a post-fight interview for Sky Sports saw Joshua give his assessment - while Hearn also chipped in and made a brilliant prediction about what would follow for AJ in his career.
Eddie Hearn's prediction:
Credit: Sky Sports
What have we picked up from the above footage? Wladimir Klitschko is a top bloke.
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AJ has been on a remarkable journey in his career and a 19th career win against the Ukrainian has just elevated his already huge reputation.
This article originally appeared on SPORTbible.
Featured Image Credit: Youtube/Boxing.uaTopics: Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua
