Heavyweight contender Jermaine Franklin (21-1) believes that the only method of victory he has at his disposal when he takes on former unified world heavyweight champion, Anthony Joshua (24-3), is via knockout. Franklin faces the two time unified champion on April 1st at the 02 Arena, London which marks Joshua’s return to action following two back to back defeats to Oleksandr Usyk in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
Jermaine will be heading to the UK for second time following his controversial points loss to former world title challenger and promotional stablemate of Anthony in the shape of Dillian Whyte. Jermaine lost a close twelve round decision to the former WBC world title challenger and has vowed not to leave his return to action in the hands of the judges when he faces Joshua.
Speaking to IFL TV, Franklin emphises his intentions to go on the front foot Joshua in fear of not getting a fair shake with the judges on fight night.
"I'm trying to knock AJ out. I know I'm probably not going to get no fair shake over here. That's our mentality, kill. I don't want to sh!t on nobody, but we've already kind of been through that. We kind of just got through that situation."
"Honestly, because I won the last fight on points. The CompuBox numbers say I outpunched him (Whyte) in almost every round, by four rounds and they gave him the fight. I feel like I'm in a position where I have to knock him out (Joshua) or dominate the whole fight, extremely dominate the whole fight.”
Franklin still firmly believes that he did more than enough to defeat Dillian Whyte and feels he was cheated during that contest late last year.
"I watched [the Whyte fight] probably like two-three times, I felt like I won. There was a lot of cheating going on in that damn fight. I was like, 'Damn, I just need a bit of fairness.' I kept getting clubbed, low-blows, headbutted, all types of sh!t. But as soon as I did something, the ref was on me. I was like, 'Yeah, all I asked for was a fair shake.' I know I ain't gonna get a fair shake on everything but at least keep me protected in the ring. That was the biggest thing I took from it, besides that I thought I easily won the fight 7-5."