Anthony Joshua said he could have been a world class defender if he pursued a career in football, claiming Virgil van Dijk would have been pushed into obscurity.
The two-time unified world heavyweight champion insisted that he would have made it to the Premier League if he had chosen football over boxing.
“Look, you might not have ever known about Virgil van Dijk or anyone. Joshua told SPORTbible. “You’d have never heard about Chris Smalling if I’d have carried on my football days.
“Actually, I wasn’t a bad defender at the back! But I didn’t take it seriously.
“I like boxing, it’s an individual sport. And I just like to challenge myself. With football sometimes, I felt like I could depend on the other 10 players on the pitch to a certain degree.
“Whereas boxing, you know what? You can’t even depend on your coaches. It’s just you. It’s you, alone in the ring, no one wants to win more than that one person. That’s why I love boxing.”
Meanwhile, Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury are still in the negotiation stages of a planned undisputed heavyweight championship fight later this year, where Fury would defend the WBC, while Joshua would be putting up the WBA, IBF, and WBO belts.
