Let’s Get Ready To Rumble!
The rise and fall (and rise again?) of Anthony Joshua.
Let’s Get Ready To Rumble
I like to base my articles on current events and am well aware that this is a big weekend of sport for many. It is the start of the Gallagher Rugby Premiership season and the end of the cricket County Championship. As much as I love both cricket and rugby union, I have always been a much bigger follower of the international games, possibly due to the greater availability of coverage when I was younger. I wouldn’t want to write an article at this point about something that I don’t feel particularly knowledgeable on.
There is also another Grand Prix, this time in Singapore, this weekend and this season has been a great one with Max Verstappen’s recent dominance being finally put under some serious pressure. However, I plan to write another Formula One article very soon as we get a little closer to the end of the season.
The WSL is also beginning and over recent years I have found myself becoming far more aware of the women’s football game. Various television channels, Sky and the BBC particularly, have done a fantastic job in trying to push the popularity of the form both in the time before and the time since the Lionesses’ victory at the 2022 Euros. Including female players in the hugely popular Ultimate Team on EAFC has also helped to further spread the word on player names and performances. I can now quite confidently discuss English players such as Alessia Russo and Ella Toone and Scots such as Erin Cuthbert or Kim Little, but also those from other shores such as Sam Kerr or Vivianne Miedema. Yet still, apart from following the fortunes of my own football teams as usual, my focus this weekend will be elsewhere.
I will be looking towards Wembley Stadium, and the expected post-War British record crowd of 96,000 that will be on hand to witness the latest instalment in the career of Anthony Joshua. This will be the 32nd professional bout of Joshua’s career, but despite boasting an impressive record of 28 victories (25 by KO) and only 3 losses, it still feels like he has not managed to reach the heights expected of him and that, given the early hype, his career has ultimately been a bit of a disappointment.
Some of it is down to when and how exactly his losses happened. I mean, before his first loss, Joshua had been 22 fights unbeaten and had beaten a formidable list of heavyweights including Joseph Parker (his only victory that went the distance to that point), Alexander Povetkin and compatriot Dillian Whyte whom he had beaten in a barnburner of a fight in front of an electric crowd at the O2. I remember watching this with my housemate in Bexleyheath and being astounded by how both men came out swinging in the first round. At that point you certainly wouldn’t have believed that it would have taken until Round 7 for the stoppage to come.
However, it was his victory over the legendary Wladimir Klitschko in 2018 to unify the WBO, IBF and WBA heavyweight championships that really set him out as the superstar of British heavyweight boxing at the time, especially considering the downfall (at that point) of Tyson Fury since he himself had beaten Klitschko three years previously.
Up until this stage in his career, Joshua had very much been the darling of the British boxing scene. Winning gold at the 2012 London Olympics, and the subsequent publicity that came along with such a feat, had cemented him as a favourite in the public eye and it was inevitable that he would turn professional sooner rather than later. With his imposing physique and superstar looks, Joshua was virtually guaranteed to be a money maker for promoters.
When his professional career did get started though, there were the usual rumblings that the star was being too protected. It is obvious that promoters don’t want their cash cows to lose momentum early, but by the time he faced Whyte in his 15th professional fight, Joshua hadn’t even been past three rounds. Obviously this created an intended illusion of dominance, but it was also clear that he hadn’t really been tested, and this may be something to do with some of the issues that he faced down the line. In the wider public eye he was the golden boy but there were those wondering when the real test would come.
Beating Charles Martin for the IBF title in the fight following that against Whyte was a big step forward and two further defences followed before the Klitschko fight. Beating the giant Ukrainian was a definite statement and although people will argue that ‘Dr Steelhammer’ was at the end of his career and past his best at that point, Joshua still needed to get the job done, and that is exactly what he did.
Following this, Joshua produced three solid defences against good opponents, consolidating the belief in his abilities by his supporters, before taking part in his first fight in foreign soil against Andy Ruiz Jr at Madison Square Garden in 2019. Joshua’s opponent was initially scheduled to be Jarrell Miller but failed drug tests meant that he couldn’t be granted a license and then negotiations with the Cuban Luis Ortiz fell through. With only a month to go until the scheduled fight date, something had to be done, and Ruiz stepped in.
Despite the jokes about being overweight, particularly when compared to the chiselled Joshua, Ruiz was a capable heavyweight having only lost once before (albeit to Joseph Parker who Joshua had already beaten). He was a massive underdog for this fight though, particularly with the late notice and it is definitely possible that Joshua underestimated him and was looking towards the future. This massively played into the Mexican-American’s favour though and although events seemed to be going to schedule when Joshua knocked Ruiz down in Round 3 (the first of his career), the challenger bounced straight back, responding immediately to knock Joshua to the canvas twice himself before the end of the round before doing the same thing again in Round 7 to have the fight stopped by TKO. It was a huge upset in the boxing world (for me personally it brought back memories of when Lennox Lewis had been defeated by Hasim Rahman) and vindication for those who had questioned Joshua’s pedigree.
The inevitable rematch happened later in the year when Joshua avenged his loss, boxing smartly this time, to take a victory by unanimous points decision. Despite winning his belts back though, his reputation had been tarnished somewhat, and he needed to try and find a way to properly regain momentum.
It was around this time that there began to be real traction behind trying to set up a ‘Battle of Britain’ between Joshua and the resurrected Tyson Fury. The Gypsy King had come back from having had to acrimoniously drop his belts like a man possessed and had taken WBC champion Deontay Wilder to a draw before defeating him in the rematch to take his title. It has seemed for years that the ‘money’ match is between the two Brits, but for many reasons it has yet to happen, and although it would still make huge money, the peak time for the bout has probably passed.
This is where the murkier side of boxing comes in as each organisation has their own raking of contenders that needs to be adhered to at some point and it can be difficult to fit other fights in around this, despite people wanting them to happen. For Joshua, he was supposed to face mandatory challengers Kubrat Pulev and Oleksandr Usyk and Fury had the rematch with Wilder to contend with. However, usually in boxing, money talks and if a fight is really meant to happen then it will. In this case, despite actually being signed for at one time, the fight never has taken place and there is much debate as to why this may be the case, with theories including both men (or their promoters) wanting to dodge it to avoid a massive blow to their reputation in losing. They would never outwardly say this themselves though.
As it turns out, it didn’t take them fighting each other for these blows to eventually happen. Fury has retired again and returned again before only beating ex-UFC champion Francis Ngannou in a controversial points victory and then losing for the first time in his career to a split points decision in the favour of Usyk earlier this year, who in turn became the undisputed heavyweight champion.
In the meantime, Joshua beat Pulev but then suffered back-to-back defeats to Usyk, firstly by unanimous decision in 2021 where it seemed he wasn’t focused and really didn’t show up at all, and then by split decision where he was better, but probably still the rightful loser in 2022. Usyk has now surely overtaken both men in terms of being the world’s top heavyweight and it has left Joshua a bit directionless and looking to rebuild (Fury still has his rematch with Usyk to come in December).
The rebuild started for started for Joshua with three successive victories over Jermaine Franklin, Robert Helenius and Otto Wallin, none of whom are exactly household names, and then a knockout win over Ngannou, the man who had taken Fury so close (and arguably won). With Fury still building towards his world title rematch, Joshua needs to keep the resurgence going in the meantime and facing Dubois at Wembley is another step in the right direction on a massive stage.
His opponent tonight is the current IBF champion after Usyk relinquished that belt so it is a chance for Joshua to win gold again. Dubois is still only 27 but holds an impressive record (21 wins in 23 fights) having only been beaten by Joe Joyce earlier in his career and then also by Usyk, although that was in somewhat controversial circumstances after a punch that knocked the Ukrainian down was deemed to be low and the referee gave him up to 5 minutes to recover. He could easily pose Joshua problems this evening.
It will be interesting to see which version of Joshua we get, the eager fighter keen to get back on track, or the fighter that some felt had got a little lazy. If he really is interested in getting back to the top and it is the former and he does win, all eyes will be on Riyadh in December to see if Fury can regain his titles and then hopefully we will all get the Battle of Britain we have all been waiting for, even if it would be a few years too late.
Either way, one feels that the next couple years will be the decider in where Joshua’s place in history will actually be. Will it be as one of the best British heavyweights and world champions, or will it be as the man from whom so much was promised but the journey was never truly fulfilled? Only time will tell.