Carl Froch takes aim at Anthony Joshua's fading career by suggesting he should 'just retire' - and reveals why he'd come out of retirement to fight 'clown' Jake Paul

Anthony Joshua’s decline, as Carl Froch sees it, is not just about the defeats to Andy Ruiz, Oleksandr Usyk or Daniel Dubois. It is the loss of structure, belief and identity that Rob McCracken had built around him.

Froch speaks about McCracken with the kind of loyalty forged through years of trust. The Nottingham fighter was with him from his debut in 2002 through to multiple world title wins. He has always said McCracken shaped him, not just trained him.

So, when Joshua cut ties with the man who guided him to Olympic gold and heavyweight glory following the first Usyk loss in 2021, citing the need for change, Froch recognised the warning signs immediately.

'People may think this is a controversial take but I think AJ’s downfall started when he split up from Rob McCracken,' Froch said when we sat down for an hour-long chat on ClubHouse Boxing’s new show.

'Rob guided him from amateur nobody to Olympic champion and then to world honours. But AJ didn’t listen. He left him. That was the worst decision he could have made. Now he’s mentally distraught, physically getting old, completely lost. I honestly don’t think there is a way back. I think he’s done and he knows it.'

If the split was the signal, Froch argues, the behaviour afterwards was the confirmation. He frames Joshua’s post-McCracken era not as reinvention but as a slow unravelling: a list of trainers, a catalogue of half-measures, and the gradual erosion of the basics that make fighters into champions.

'AJ could have fallen out of love with boxing, it's possible,' Froch says. 'He didn't want to do the running, he didn't want to spar, he didn't want to train (towards the end of his stint with McCracken). You hear all of this stuff coming out from the gym rats and through the grapevine and you just know it's the beginning of the end.'

The issue, Froch insists, is not just effort, it is respect.

'When you're refusing to do that stuff and you've also stopped listening to your trainer, that's it. You’re finished. You have to listen to your coach with no question. When he says jump, your only reply should be "how high" or "yes sir". And that is not what AJ was doing.'

For Froch the succession of camps Joshua has passed through since McCracken - Robert Garcia, Derrick James, Ben Davison, and the latest whispers of a shift to Usyk’s camp - reads less like adaptability and more like aimless searching.

'I’ve heard about AJ potentially teaming up with Usyk’s people. I can’t say it’s a bad move to be honest because Usyk’s team are fantastic,' he allows. 'They get him in shape, they manage him well. So for AJ, going over to that team can only be a positive.'

Froch's pragmatic concession comes with a caveat though. Coaching can only patch visible faults. The deeper damage, Froch says, is psychological.

'Since the Ruiz knockout, he's lost loads of belief,' he explains. 'Yes he got the rematch, but he just ran and held. He nicked a decision and it didn’t rebuild anything. Every time he’s fought someone who genuinely wants to win, he’s lost. He’s not a top fighter anymore.'

Froch pauses, then speaks with the bluntness that has made him both revered and occasionally loathed in boxing circles: 'I don’t understand why he’s still going. Just retire.'

Froch’s verdict on Joshua bleeds directly into his view of the sport’s commercial spectacles. He doesn’t think AJ should be clinging to the hope of one last payday against Fury, and he doubts Fury should be expected to drag himself out of retirement for a meaningless headline.

'I will watch it but the fight doesn't mean anything,' he says. 'It's the battle of the losers. You’ve got two guys who have both been beaten by Usyk. Neither of them have belts. They’re both has-beens.'

His candour about high-profile matchups spills into broader territory: Froch has built a media persona on saying what others hedge. He is unapologetic and even started his own YouTube channel to give himself the platform to voice his opinions.

He’s ruffled feathers before. Joshua has publicly told Froch he was offended. Tony Bellew criticised Froch for leaking private messages between them, and promoters such as Frank Warren and Eddie Hearn have at times been openly angry with his remarks.

'I'm prepared to put my c*** on the block and say what I want to say and not worry about who I offend,' he shrugs. 'If you don't like it, you know where I am. Anthony Joshua has told me he's been offended. Tyson Fury has told me he's been offended. Frank Warren got p***** off with me. I meet these guys face to face to talk about it.

'I've spoke to Frank before, but someone got their phone out to record it. I've spoken to Eddie a few times. But anybody who's got any problems with me can give me a call or meet me, there's nothing that I've said really that's going to offend anybody too much which can't be resolved.'

One modern lightning rod he’s particularly un-charmed by is Jake Paul. Froch’s dismissal is almost affectionate in its disgust.

'When I look at Jake Paul, I just think he's so bad. He's not a boxer. He's just so bad at boxing. He's awful, I don't understand why people are claiming he's anything other than terrible. Jake Paul's in a clown world, and he puts on a clown show every time he fights.

'When he fought an actual professional like Tommy Fury, who is at best British level, he gets beaten. So for him to jump in with someone like me, 48 years old, retired veteran, Hall of Famer, he wouldn't stand a chance.

'The only thing he may have going for him is probably his fitness and his age. I don't know how strong he is. I don't know if he's taken any performance enhancing supplements, shall we say, I'm not sure. Don't know how regulated he is. Worth checking. But, that's all he has going for him.'

Yet the same man who questions Paul’s credentials and is telling AJ to retire would take one of them on for the right terms. There’s a streak of theatre in that - the retired champion who still measures himself - but it’s tied to a pragmatism that has little tolerance for sentimentality.

'I’d jump in with Jake Paul at short notice because I think it’s a one round job,' he says. 'But to get me out of retirement? I want £10 million.

'Jake Paul can be the A side. Jake Paul can get to say where it is if he wants to fight in wherever he wants to fight, and he wants to on this on Netflix, and he wants it over in America, then he gets to, he gets to choose everything, because he's the main guy in this. But to get me out retirement, to get me in the ring with him, I now want paying well.'

If influencer boxing provides a new set-piece, Misfits’ appointment of Andrew Tate as a figurehead has not escaped Froch’s attention. He is measured on the business move, but theatrical about the prospect of meeting Tate in the ring.

'I can understand Andrew Tate becoming the CEO of an organisation that's doing well and making money, because MisFits does okay business wise. The model is pretty good,' he says. 'But, I'm not sure about Andrew Tate fighting.

'I don't think it's good for his brand. Him getting punched in the face or struggling or maybe getting beaten. Listen, he'll take risks. He'll put it all on the line just to show everybody that he believes he's the best and that he can't be beaten.'

Unless, he faces the 'real' Cobra of course.

Tate has fought under the nickname 'King Cobra' in his combat-sport past, while Froch has long been referred to as 'The Cobra' in the boxing circles.

The duel over who keeps the Cobra mantle is, for Froch, half a joke and half a declaration of legacy and once more it underlines how seriously he takes names, brands and the idea of ownership in the sport.

'Right, lets see what Cobra Tate does in December. Lets see what he looks like and if he's good, maybe I'll be interested. It we ever fought, me and Andrew Tate, then the winner would take the Cobra name.

'We'd have to have that in the contract. The loser couldn't refer to themselves as the Cobra ever again if they lost the fight. If one Cobra loses to the other Cobra, they have to relinquish the Cobra title. There can only be one Cobra and that is me. Now we are going to have to fight.'