Anthony Joshua asks Laura Woods if she's single and tells her she's his dream date

Anthony Joshua made his long-awaited return to the ring over the weekend as he took on Jermaine Franklin.

The former heavyweight champion was under pressure before the fight, having lost his previous two bouts against Oleksandr Usyk.

While it wasn't the knockout victory that many were expecting, AJ took the W with an unanimous decision.

IFL TV

He then sat down with everyone's favourite sports journo, Laura Woods, for a chat about the fight and his career.

And he proceeded to lay it on thick, too.

During their pretty flirty convo, Woods asked the 33-year-old who his dream date would be, and not missing a beat, AJ replied: "You."

I mean, you can't blame him for trying, right?

Clearly over the moon with the response, Woods raised her arm in the air and screamed: "Yes! This is perfect."

Referring to a Chelsea player also admitting his, let's say, admiration for the presenter, AJ then joked: "I know [Ruben] Loftus-Cheek's beaten me to it."

Enquiring further into Woods' marital status, he asked: "Are you taken? Are you in a relationship?"

To which the Talk Sport host replied: "I'm not in a relationship. I'm too focused on work. Is that what you are?"

Joshua then explained that he's tried to stay out of relationships to avoid being distracted from boxing.

"With boxing, I feel I never wanted to commit because I didn't want to go training and I'm busy arguing with my missus or something and my head's not in the game," he said. "I just decided to keep my head where it needs to be."

You can watch the whole interview here:

Following his win over Franklin, Joshua also took the opportunity to call out Tyson Fury, who he was close to fighting last year.

"I try and provide for the fans, I know who the fans want - who do the fans want? They said Fury, yeah?" he said on the DAZN broadcast. "The ball is in his court."

@tysonfury/Instagram

Joshua continued: "I would be 100 per cent honoured to compete for the WBC Championship of the world.

"I stand here and say that proudly, that would be an honour."

Calling out Fury directly, he said: "Wherever you are, if you are listening, you know my management, you know my promoter, we've had dialogue before so let's continue this and hopefully we can get this done sooner rather than later.

"We aren't getting any younger."

Let's just hope for the sake of all boxing fans that it finally happens this time.

Topics: Sport, Boxing, Anthony Joshua, UK News

Dominic Smithers

Dominic Smithers is LADbible's Editorial Lead. After graduating from the University of Leeds with a degree in French and History, he went on to write for the Manchester Evening News, the Accrington Observer and the Macclesfield Express. So as you can imagine, he’s spent many a night wondering just how useful that second language has been. But c'est la vie.

@SmithersDom