Anthony Joshua insisted he would not give a detailed reaction to the rematch between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder on February 22, where the former won the fight and claimed the WBC belt.

The unified champion thought it was best to let his heavyweight rivals have their moment inside and outside the ring come fight night. Instead, Joshua posted just a couple of Instagram stories in the aftermath, branding them both ‘gladiators’.

Two weeks have passed since the fight and now AJ has rekindled his thoughts in his first long interview since the fight, where he spoke in-depth about his thoughts.

He was initially asked about Wilder and Fury, and in response he simply joked: “Who are they?”

He then went on to explaining on Lucozade’s Running the Show podcast, as per talkSPORT: “Fury’s very talented, Wilder’s very talented.

“They went in there, they gave their best and one man came out on top.

“I think that maybe Wilder thought it would’ve been an easier fight because Fury had a long layoff, he had his own issues outside of the ring and stuff like that.

“But I think he was mentally right. They were both physically conditioned for the fight, but sometimes when you’ve been at a rock bottom where Fury was, the only way is up.

“You can’t actually go any lower than that, so he picked himself up and only he knew how high he took his heights.

“Nothing will really – you won’t let yourself get there again. So I think he was at his highest height that night and it paid off for him.

“So mentally he was in the best place possible and he pulled off a great performance against this dangerous puncher.”

The boxing world was expecting the battle of the British heavyweights to come next as all the belts in the division belong to the UK.

However, AJ is scheduled to fight Kubrat Pulev on June 20, and ‘The Gypsy King’ is waiting for Wilder to officially activate a rematch which will see the pair face off for the third time in the ring.