DAVID PRICE claims Anthony Joshua had to be "helped up" after he knocked him out with a "big right hand" in sparring.
He even beat Tyson Fury as an amateur but has now hung up his gloves.
AJ and Price, both British heavyweights, were former training partners at Team GB's Sheffield HQ.
And one session in 2011 stands out among them all as Price floored then-amateur champion AJ.
Opening up on the incident, Price told iD Boxing: “I just caught him with a big right hand and down he went.
"He had to get helped up, type of thing, and ushered out the ring.
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"And it was no big deal to me at the time, and there was no shame in that happening to you if I hit you.”
Joshua was one year away from winning Olympic gold in London, which later paved the way for two unified world title reigns in the professional ranks.
And in 2018 he admitted to being put down by Price, just hours after leaving a police cell.
Joshua revealed: “I had come out of a police cell the day I went up to training. I won’t use it as an excuse.
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“I was coming up to training camp, Thursday to Sunday, because I was on a development course.
“But I got nicked on the way to training camp – for just trouble – and I got out on the Saturday.
“I started sparring as soon as I got up there, straight from the station, I do think he 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.
“I even had to get the train to Sheffield because they took my car – just to show my commitment. What I learnt was you cannot stop someone like me.
“They say you have two types of fighters; those that get dropped and stay down.
"But the ones you have to be wary of are the ones who keep on coming. You just cannot stop someone like that.
"I learnt it will take more than just power or durability to stop me.”
I just caught him with a big right hand and down he went.
Joshua, 33, returned to action back in April following consecutive losses to Oleksandr Usyk, 36.
AJ beat Jermaine Franklin via unanimous decision at the O2 Arena on April 1.
He had been set to fight again this Saturday in a highly-anticipated rematch against Dillian Whyte.
However, the bout has been cancelled after Whyte was found guilty of doping.
Joshua is still expected to headline the card, though, with a new opponent set to be announced.
Meanwhile Price, 40, is currently retired and insisted he only ever made the sparring tale with Joshua public to chase a fight with the star.
He said: “I never ever mentioned it until I started getting mentioned as a potential opponent for him in 2016 when he fought Erik Molina.
"I was in the IBF top ten so it could have been a voluntary defence for him and I was calling for the fight and people were laughing at the thought of me fighting him, and that’s when I thought I’ll spill the beans then and let the people know that he isn’t indestructible.
"Because at that time people thought AJ was the terminator and that he would never ever be hurt.
"Or it was this new generation of fans that people were talking about him and I thought I'd just let the cat out the bag type of thing.
"Only for my own benefit, not to try and put him down it was to try and gain something from it myself. But it didn't work out anyway, I didn't get the fight."
Price also got the better of Fury in an amateur bout in 2006.
The Beijing 2008 bronze medallist stunned the Gypsy King – and Fury admitted he deserved to lose.
The WBC heavyweight king, who was 18 at the time, said in his autobiography: “I knew I was coming to the end of my amateur days.
“I would eventually have 31 wins from 35 bouts and I would say that only one of those defeats was genuine – when I lost to my fellow British boxer David Price in the north-west final of the ABA seniors competition in Manchester in 2006.
“I had Price on the canvas in the second round with a good shot, but he clearly outpointed me. His experience was the decisive factor.”
Price added: “It’s not something I’m going to dine out on, beating Tyson Fury when he was 18.
“But I was a young man myself and he was a world bronze medallist at the time. If you watch the fight it was a good fight.
“I had to be near my best to beat him the way I did because he has obviously proven since how good he is, but even then he had something about him.
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“I’d seen young upstarts come and go and when I first sparred him I thought, ‘I’ll put this fella in his place.’ But he was different. I recognised that.
“I never ever thought he’d do what he’s done. I couldn’t foresee that. But I knew he had something better than the other up-and-coming fighters.”
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