Tyler Denny questions ‘unnecessary stick’ of Anthony Joshua

Tyler Denny has criticised the “weird agendas” he believes means observers want Anthony Joshua to fail.

Joshua, on Saturday at Wembley Stadium, challenges Dubois for the IBF heavyweight title on the occasion of the 27-year-old Dubois’ first title defence.

Not unlike when at the same venue Joshua so entertainingly stopped Wladimir Klitschko and Alexander Povektin, a crowd in the region of 90,000 is expected to be present – meaning that Denny, when he defends his European middleweight title against the promising Hamzah Sheeraz, enters his highest-profile fight.

Denny and Sheeraz, 25, will therefore become just the latest fighters to benefit from Joshua’s profile and influence, contributing to Denny questioning why the former world heavyweight champion is not treated with greater respect.

After avenging his defeat by Andy Ruiz Jnr, the 34-year-old Joshua has lost only to the great Oleksandr Usyk, and in the event of victory over Dubois on Saturday, in an even bigger occasion he could finally fight Tyson Fury next.

“He gets so much unnecessary stick,” Denny, 33, told BoxingScene. “For what he’s done, just for boxing in general – he got the stadium fights regularly. He’s a massive name. He’s probably bumped everyone’s money up as well. 

“He’s made boxing bigger. The amount of stick he gets for losing against Usyk – maybe he might not get so much now [Usyk’s] beaten Fury. He might leave off him in a bit. It’s hard when you’re at the top like them guys. But people have weird agendas. They like to see people fail for some reason. I’ve never really got that. I suppose you get it the same with high-level footballers as well.

“There must be a lot of pressure on his shoulders in certain fights. But you look at his CV – he takes big fights. 

“I don’t think you can really win, can you? He’ll beat Dubois and it’ll be, ‘He shouldn’t be a world champion; Dubois was never a world champion.’ You can never win, can you?”