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.
"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.”
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.