Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua has had plenty of heated exchanges and confrontations with rivals throughout his career, but only one opponent has ever inspired genuine animosity from the British star.<\/p>\n
Joshua, 36, turned professional in 2013 after winning super-heavyweight gold at the London 2012 Olympics. He went on to hold the WBO, IBF and WBA world titles between 2018 and 2019, later reclaiming the belts in a memorable rematch victory over Andy Ruiz Jr at the end of 2019.<\/p>\n
Standing at 6ft 6in and fighting out of an orthodox stance, Joshua retained his status at the top of the division until his reign was ended by Oleksandr Usyk in 2021, with the Ukrainian \u2014 now 38 \u2014 bringing AJ\u2019s two-year spell as unified champion to a close.<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of that setback, Joshua faced a series of high-profile opponents, including former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou and fellow Brit Daniel Dubois, as he looked to work his way back into world-title contention. His latest outing against the polarising Jake Paul passed without incident, with Joshua claiming a dominant sixth-round knockout victory.<\/p>\n
After stopping Paul, a long-awaited showdown with Tyson Fury in 2026 has once again been floated. Yet despite those rivalries, none compare to the one fighter Joshua admits he truly dislikes \u2014 former adversary Dillian Whyte.
\nWhat Anthony Joshua Has Said About His \u2018Most-Hated\u2019 Rival
\nSpeaking ahead of Whyte\u2019s clash with Fury in 2022, Joshua did not hide his feelings about the man he has shared the ring with on two occasions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m backing Dillian [against Fury], even though I hate him \u2014 and I\u2019d love to get another chance to smash him one day,\u201d Joshua said.
\nThe bad blood between the pair dates back to their amateur meeting in 2009, when Whyte emerged victorious on the judges\u2019 scorecards. Their professional rematch in 2015, billed as Bad Intentions, swung firmly in Joshua\u2019s favour, with the Watford-born heavyweight securing a seventh-round TKO.<\/p>\n
The build-up to that contest was notoriously explosive, amplified by a tense Sky Sports face-off that became a defining moment of their rivalry.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou got bashed up,\u201d Whyte taunted Joshua, referencing the amateur defeat, before AJ cut in with a blunt response that summed up his view of his rival: \u201cYou talk too much.\u201d
\nWhyte\u2019s most recent outing ended in a brutal first-round knockout loss to rising star Moses Itauma in August \u2014 a result Joshua likely took great satisfaction in witnessing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua has had plenty of heated exchanges and confrontations with rivals throughout his career, but only one opponent has ever inspired genuine animosity from the British star. Joshua, 36, turned professional in 2013 after winning super-heavyweight gold at the London 2012 Olympics. He went on to hold the WBO, IBF …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":57102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/mixcollage-20-dec-2025-05-22-am-9433-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57101"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57103,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57101\/revisions\/57103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}