They came face to face in London on Wednesday to formally announce their Ring main event at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on December 11. Despite a rivalry lasting more than a decade, the two leading British heavyweights of the era kept things respectful and even smiled as they posed together for the first time.

At one point, Fury even invited Joshua to join him for a post-match pint, regardless of the result in the Welsh capital 14 days before Christmas.

Joshua (30-4, 27 KOs) refused to accept the invitation and suggested he still cannot trust “The Gypsy King,” despite his seemingly well-intentioned suggestion.

The 36-year-old Londoner has insisted that he won’t be sucked in by Fury, who has a history of pre-fight mind games.

“Can you really believe anything he says?” Joshua asked. “He’ll be trying to get under my skin 100 percent. None of it will work on me. I need to be stoic and calm. It’s nothing personal. I just know what sort of person he is. Even if someone is loyal and good to you, you still don’t trust them. He can be really good to me, but I’ll still know that this is a fight.

“He doesn’t have to be a bad person. We don’t have to hate each other. Even if he is being respectful, I need to remember that he wants to beat me. I know where I stand with it. It doesn’t matter what he says. I won’t be friendly because he’s friendly or rude because he’s rude. I will be stoic in my approach because I know that this is a fight.”

Joshua’s chances of facing Fury at all nearly went up in smoke on July 25, when unheralded Kristian Prenga dropped him twice in the first round of a warm-up fight.

But Joshua climbed back to his feet and completely turned the tide, dropping and stopping his Albanian opponent in the second round to secure the richest fight in British boxing history against Fury.

It has been suggested that his performance against Prenga (20-2, 20 KOs) is evidence of a decline for Joshua. But, on the contrary, he believes what happened in Saudi Arabia will actually help him in the long run.

“I know now that you can’t waste time in that ring,” Joshua said. “If you can do it in the first 10 or 20 seconds, do it. I’m living in that urgency to win now. That last fight showed me not to mess about. I couldn’t believe it, 20 seconds? I was buzzing, but I know what happened. I got through and can take something from it, and that’s that I am a resilient motherf***** and I am hard to pin down.

“Remember when you hurt someone in the last minute, they can get through to the final bell. But when you are hurt in the first 20 seconds and he has 2:40 to knock you out — and he is full of energy — that was good. I stuck in and turned the table. I was really happy with that.”

Joshua believes his comeback against Prenga was a reminder about what's to come against Fury.

“My last fight was mad,” Joshua said. “I was walking to the ring, planning to break Prenga down, and then I walk out victorious and now we are sat here buzzing. We are going to walk to the ring and I will be ready. But this time it will be different because I will be ready to be punched and keep pushing forward.

“Prenga was hitting me from pillar to post in Round 1, but I got up and I got the victory. So, I need to take that momentum into the next fight, and I am confident it will happen because I want it to happen.”