Anthony Joshua: Battle of Britain with Tyson Fury is what the boxing world needs

Anthony Joshua knows a Battle of Britain with Tyson Fury is the fight "the boxing world needs" to see after he survived his "do or die" clash with Jermaine Franklin.

Joshua laboured to his first victory since 2020 with a unanimous points decision success over the American heavyweight at the O2 Arena.

After back-to-back defeats to Oleksandr Usyk, the former Olympic champion could not afford another loss on his CV with retirement talk the elephant in the room since Usyk won his world titles in Tottenham two years ago.

While it was far from vintage from Joshua at his old stomping ground, the judges scored 118-111, 117-111 and 117-111 in favour of the home boxer, who regularly landed his left jab and connected with several thunderous right punches without pushing Franklin to the point of no return.

It means the two-time world heavyweight champion lives to fight another day and he knows all roads lead back to rival Fury.

"Dillian Whyte or Tyson Fury? Well, 100% Tyson Fury," Joshua (who took his record to 25-3, with 22 knockouts) insisted.

"That is the pot of gold. That is the WBC heavyweight champion of the world. That's what it is all about so definitely Tyson Fury.

"Yeah (another warm-up fight) would be ideal, after that long lay-off, to get active. But sometimes an opportunity presents itself and you have to grab it with both hands.

"In that sense, if the opportunity presented itself and coach and team agree it is a good opportunity, I would take it and grab it with both hands, 100%. The boxing world needs it."

Given Joshua had lost three of his previous five fights, a big question for the Watford-born boxer was if he still had the motivation, but a dedicated training camp in Dallas with new trainer Derrick James showed that over