Eddie Hearn insists Anthony Joshua has felt the psychological effects of his brutal defeat to Daniel Dubois.
Hearn saw his charge Joshua demolished by Dubois in five rounds in September, with his bid to claim the IBF heavyweight world title dashed in front of a record 96,000 fans at Wembley Stadium.
The Matchroom boss says the two-time heavyweight world champion has struggled to come to terms with the loss.
“I’ve seen the pain that he’s suffered from the Dubois defeat,” Hearn told Chris Mannix.
“And he’s suffered that because he wants it so bad.
“He strives for that great performance.
“He puts all the work in to make sure that he can deliver on the night and he didn’t deliver and worse than that, he didn’t perform.
“He’s been down.
“He hasn’t taken this defeat well in my opinion and that’s the sign of someone who cares and that’s the sign of someone who wants it and he wants it bad, he still does.”
Joshua, 35, is on vacation in Nigeria and told media he is looking to finally face bitter rival Tyson Fury this year.
Fury, 36, suffered a second straight defeat to Oleksandr Usyk in December and Hearn maintains that ‘AJ’ is only seeking showdowns with either Fury or Dubois.
“It’s the biggest fight in boxing commercially,” he added.
“It’s just a huge fight and for AJ, when you look at his resume the only thing really missing, I know the Wilder fight that we signed for and he got beat, but it’s just Tyson Fury.
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“There’s only really two things for AJ, one is to try and rematch Dubois, who has obviously got a tough fight against Joseph Parker and the other one is to fight Tyson Fury.
“As long as Tyson Fury wants to carry on and he’s motivated to fight, I just believe it’ll happen, because I don’t see other options for Fury.”
