Anthony Joshua is closer than ever to retiring from boxing based on his post-fight press conference according to Darren Stanton, ‘the human lie detector’ and a world-leading expert in deception and body language.
Speaking to OLBG, Stanton picked out some key moments from Joshua’s performance after the fight that rang alarm bells over his future.
“It was a very sterile, very stoic performance. When he talked about quitting or retiring there was no passion with his statements. There were a couple of things that concern me in terms of being deceptive.
“When someone asked him whether he’s quitting he said no I’m not quitting – we call that a contraction, or parroting. People tend to parrot the language of someone else. It’s not so much lying but a linguistic deflection.
“When someone catches us unawares with a question they may mirror the language back to them to buy themselves a few seconds.
“When someone asked will he carry on he came back and said of course he’ll carry on, so there’s something there – so yes, I do believe, by the true definition of the word, he was being deceptive.”
According to Stanton, Joshua is likely thinking about hanging up his gloves after his defeat to fellow British heavyweight Daniel Dubois.
“He’s not about to quit imminently but it’s something on the cards,” added Stanton. “It’s on the agenda.
“Basically, by mirroring the language, the lack of authenticity, no real passion in his words like there usually is, and his vocal tone being monosyllabic, it was very stale, and he usually speaks from the heart. Overall I do think there’s an issue there. Anthony Joshua was not being authentic.”
