ANT’S ON THE MARCH
Forget celebrating this world title victory... Joshua, like all the very best champions, is already planning his next stop on the road to GREATNESS
punches fewer than Parker, he landed nearly 40 more. Parker’s primary weapon was his body shot, yet Joshua outlanded him in that department 46 to 40.
Trainer Kevin Barry grumbled about the over-fussy Italian referee Giuseppe Quartarone preventing Parker working on the inside and that he didn’t speak English, which Joshua’s camp flatly rejected.
Parker was gracious at suffering his first pro loss and noted Joshua’s improvement.
“He’s a good fighter, he can box,” he said. “He worked on a lot of things we saw as weaknesses.”
Yet there was one person who might have been unhappy with Joshua’s display, his mum.
“She was expecting a knockout,” smiled Joshua. “She said the second or seventh. Maybe she had a bet on or something!”
SIR ALEX FERGUSON was the same.
The champagne bubbles had not burst on celebrating one success before he focused on the next.
All serial winners have that relentless attitude, be it Roger Federer’s quest for another Slam or Lewis Hamilton’s refusal to be satisfied with four F1 world titles. Anthony Joshua has it, too. As he sat in the media room in Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, with the WBA, IBF, IBO and WBO belts laid out in front of him, there was no triumphalism.
Yes, he would chill and perhaps have some of the brownies and ice cream he has enviously watched his team eat this week, but that would be it.
His focus is on winning the WBC belt to become the first fighter ever to hold all five heavyweight crowns.
“Yeah, I’m certainly not elated because I don’t let the highs get to my head,” he said. “If I was retiring on this high, I’d be, ‘Yes, I’m the man’, but I’ve got to defend these belts again in a few months.
“We are looking to the next one and it’s not time to sit back. I’ll enjoy it more when I’m done.”
The 28-year-old claims he is driven by the pressure to be perfect. “I can’t rest on this s**t,” he said. “It’s not time to sit back and be like, ‘I’m the man’.
“Boxing, every sport these days, doesn’t give athletes a chance to make a mistake and learn from it. It has to be perfection, it has to be a highlights reel, it has to look great. If it doesn’t, it’s not good enough. So I don’t think we’ll see any more LeBron Jameses, any more Cristiano Ronaldos, and it will be hard to find any more Mike Tysons.”
That mindset was evident in his punch-perfect tactical display against Joseph Parker.
Gone was the gunslinging Joshua of those wars with Dillian Whyte and Wladimir Klitschko.
He was clinical like Floyd Mayweather Jr as he fought behind his jab and picked off the previously-unbeaten Kiwi.
He barely threw his sledgehammer right, mindful it would have left the door open for Parker’s left.
Exciting it was not and many among the 78,000 crowd would have grumbled about the lack of action and stoppage.
Their gripes don’t matter and this was a leap forward in Joshua’s progression as he proved he can box as well as punch. “I do like to be known as a big puncher but, at the same time, be known as someone who can box and control opponents as well,” he said.
“There’s not been one heavyweight world champion who was just a good puncher. Even Mike Tyson was known for his head movement and speed as well as his power.
“I can knock people out, but I can definitely stick to a game plan and carry a fight through.”
Trainer Rob McCracken was delighted although, typically, he did not look it with his poker-face expression.
“I thought he boxed really well, I’d give him nine out of 10,” he said. “He boxed behind his jab, negated Parker and cut him off.”
The stats underline Joshua’s dominance as he won comfortably on all three scorecards and, although he threw nearly 100