Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua got back to winning ways on Saturday night at the 02 Arena in London with a unanimous decision win over Jermaine Franklin.<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old British-Nigerian heavyweight controlled the contest against the durable American but it was not the explosive early finish many expected and betting sites predicted.<\/span><\/p>\n The two-time champion won the match with the judges scorecards reading 118-111, 117-111, 117-111.<\/span><\/p>\n The British-Nigerian won the fight with his uppercuts landing the most damamge as Franklin took all Joshua\u2019s hit boldly refusing to fall.<\/span><\/p>\n Tempers flared after the final bell as the two fighters squared up to each other, prompting their teams to enter the ring and be separated by security.<\/span><\/p>\n It is Joshua\u2019s first win in more than two years, having lost consecutive bouts to Oleksandr Usyk.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was important to win. Jermaine has a good duck-and-dive style, somebody else from Britain will probably knock him out,\u201d Joshua said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI respect him, he did well. I should have knocked him out but it is done. On to the next. He is here to prove himself, not roll over. I wish I could have knocked him out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Joshua has now won 25 fights, with 22 stoppages, and lost three since turning professional in 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n It is a second defeat for Franklin, 29, having lost to Briton Dillian Whyte in November.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua got back to winning ways on Saturday night at the 02 Arena in London with a unanimous decision win over Jermaine Franklin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13069,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2392,6795,6794],"class_list":["post-13055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-anthony-joshua","tag-jermain-franklin","tag-london-jinx"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13055"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13070,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13055\/revisions\/13070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}