Anthony Joshua has responded to Deontay Wilder after the WBC world champion criticised his performance in his world heavyweight title victory over Andy Ruiz Jr.
Joshua won back his IBF, WBA, WBO and IBO titles in Saudi Arabia with victory over Andy Ruiz Jr on Saturday, righting his wrongs from the first fight with a composed and effective display inside the squared circle.
Instead of trading with 'The Destroyer' like in the first fight at Madison Square Garden, he adopted a smart, old-school approach of sitting behind his jab and keeping the distance en route to a comfortable points win - 118-110, 118-110 and 119-109 being the scores from all three judges.
But Wilder was not impressed and ripped into Joshua and Wilder blasted the 30-year old for having Wladimir Klitschko in his camp and using the Ukrainian legend's 'boring' boxing style.
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He said: "Joshua did what he had to do to get the win. He ran around the ring and was on his bike all day.
"Basically, he had Klitschko in the camp and he was a lot like Klitschko: that jab-grab-hold method. That's all he did tonight.
"You want to dominate guys, man. Maybe I'm just too rough, too hardcore and too much of a dream for this time and era, maybe the world wants that nice s**t... my mentality is so different from these other fighters."
Joshua was made aware of Wilder's comments and had a classy reply, stressing how 'the Bronze Bomber' feeds off negativity unlike him.
"That's Wilder's opinion," Joshua told The Athletic.
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"A lot of people don't have a good bone in their body to say a positive thing anyway.
"I outboxed the heavyweight champion of the world for 12 rounds. I don't think I lost a round. 'Maybe one... I come in there with a great game plan, I'm successful. Isn't that good enough?
"You can't box to keep everyone happy; you have to box for the win. And I feel like when I'm at home celebrating, he's there talking about negativity."
AJ was pretty classy in his comments but his promoter Eddie Hearn went in on Wilder, slamming his poor ticket sales and pay-per-view numbers.
Speaking to IFL TV, Hearn responded: "What after Anthony Joshua just put on an absolutely public exhibition and schooled the world heavyweight champion?
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"We spent too much energy and time talking about Wilder who, in the grand scheme of things, has just boxed in America at Las Vegas and sold 7,000 f***ing tickets and done about 100,000 buys on pay-per-view.
"No-one gives a monkey's about Deontay Wilder. Sorry, it's true."
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Topics: Heavyweight boxing, Boxing News, Andy Ruiz, Anthony Joshua, Boxing