Anthony Joshua admitted he got knocked out by David Price in one tough sparring session after spending night in jail in 2011

Anthony Joshua once left a prison cell and headed straight into a knock out by David Price in a sparring session.

Before becoming one of the biggest names in world boxing as he is recognised as today, AJ was a fresh-faced amateur learning the ropes of the sport.

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Prior to his world title unification bout against Joseph Parker in 2018, Joshua revealed details of the Price KO that took place behind closed doors and saw him require help getting back to his feet.

The revelation came after Parker’s team accused the champion of having ‘a glass jaw’, which Price had exposed.

But according to AJ himself, the day leading up to the knockout was far too surreal for his liking.

"I think I was doing Thursday to Sunday because I was doing a development course,” he said after the press conference with Parker. “Got nicked on the way up to training camp, for trouble.

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"Got out Saturday and I went up there. I got there by the station. I do think he [Price] was very good at the time, very strong. And I was making too many mistakes.

“Those circumstances don’t help when you’re sparring an elite fighter.”

He added: "I caught the train because they took my car. [I made the effort] Just to show the commitment and got straight into sparring.”

In order to ramp up potential interest in a fight between the two British boxers which ultimately never happened, Price first told the story in 2016 shortly after Joshua defeated Charles Martin to claim the IBF heavyweight title.

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"It's probably the worst kept secret in boxing and it's something that I've never really brought up or mentioned," Price told  at the time.

"When it happened, Joshua was an amateur on the GB squad and I was a novice pro and I kept it to myself because he was an up and coming potential boxer. I wanted to protect him from it, didn't want to go around boasting about it.

"But our positions have changed and he's heavyweight champion of the world. I'm someone who would definitely be interested in having a shot at it, and I thought the time was right to let the cat out of the bag and let people know.

"It is possible that Anthony Joshua can be hurt and can be beaten. What I'm talking about happened a long time ago, but it's still the two same people."

Asked if he knocked out Joshua, Price replied: "100 per cent yeah. If it was a fight, it would have been stopped immediately. Not asleep, but flat on his face and ushered out of the ring by his trainers.

"It doesn't seem to have affected him that much, because he's gone on to achieve good things. He won a world silver medal a few months later.”

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In 2019, Joshua was knocked out for the first time as a professional as Andy Ruiz Jr stopped the Brit in stunning fashion in Madison Square Garden.

Six months later though, he won back the belts by outpointing the Mexican-American.

In 2021, AJ suffered the second defeat of his pro career as he was beaten on points by Oleksandr Usyk.

Now, he is set for a rematch with the Ukrainian on Saturday night, live on talkSPORT, and will be hoping to regain his belts once more.

As Price and Ruiz showed though, he does have weaknesses that Usyk will no doubt be looking to take advantage of.