How Joshua followed Fergie methods to become ultimate ringmaster
Following Fergie’s methods, playing board games with the family — the unusual ways Anthony Joshua’s become...
APRICELESS insight into the power of Sir Alex Ferguson’s positive thinking has convinced Anthony Joshua that he must consign his epic Wembley win over Wladimir Klitschko to history and move on with cementing his own legend.
Starting tonight at the Principality Stadium. Even though the challenger for his world heavyweight titles adds no glamour to the narrative.
Six years ago a security guard barred the young, unknown AJ from asking George Groves to autograph a boxing glove. He vowed to himself that whenever possible he would never crush any fan with such a rebuff.
This week he has kept that promise by spending hours posing for selfies among excited crowds in Cardiff. Most weekends when he is not engaging in unarmed combat against rival giants he joins family and friends in playing the board game Risk, a personal reminder that there is no reward without danger in his brutal business.
One seat among the 78,000 under the Principality roof is expected to be occupied by a lad who emerged from a coma after being played a video made by Joshua.
The strands bringing Joshua together as the biggest name in world boxing are many, varied and extend beyond the normal ambitions for fame and fortune.
The mind is as open as the shoulders are broad.
When he chatted with his friend Rio Ferdinand one evening after that magical night at Wembley he was all ears.
‘Rio told me about Sir Alex’s reaction to success at Manchester United,’ says Joshua. ‘He said that the gaffer would allow them one day of celebration after winning a trophy. Then he would tell them that all that mattered now was the next title. The next game that would be the last game remembered.
‘He was the general who instilled that in them. The boss. I’ve instilled that into myself. I have to be the general in the ring, my own boss. I must move on, to the next memorable night. Ten years from now we can look back and talk again about beating Klitschko.’
Meanwhile, he will never forget the night Groves beat James DeGale.
‘I was in the crowd and wanted to see George after the fight,’ he recalls. ‘I wanted his autograph and would have gone so far as to ask him if he would give it to me on one of his gloves. The security man turned me back, “Off you go”. That was all. Don’t worry, I remember the guy.
‘If he had given some sort of explanation. Like George is busy or tired or likes to keep his memorabilia it would have been all right, but it was crushing just to be told to go away.
‘That’s why I try not to turn anyone down. I know the value of giving time to people. If someone does that for you, it stays with you for life. And if they don’t . . . ’
That is part of Joshua’s appeal. Another is the parallel with the Risk board game in the way he fights.
‘The game is about political power, territory, conquest,’ says Joshua. ‘The aim is world domination but you can’t achieve that without taking chances.’
He believes his personification of the game is the reason he can fill vast stadiums: ‘People from a wider audience than boxing are aware something exciting is going on. It’s the “I was there” moment. The 80,000 who were at Wembley can say it. Those who missed it want to be at the next one so they can say it too. ‘That’s why I need not only to beat Carlos Takam but to win big.’ And for a chap called Gary, whose recovery he may have aided. Boxing trainer Billy Nelson sent him a message about a young man in a coma. Joshua says: ‘He asked me to send a video of myself. Seems it may have helped. He came round and he’s OK now and I’ve sent two tickets.’ The bookmakers are in no doubt that Joshua will deliver another impactful message. They quote him at anything up to 1-66 to beat Takam. Joshua suspects his opponent is better than that. The 36-year-old from Cameroon who lives in Paris is five inches shorter and eight years older, but
has lost only three of his 39 fights and has a high percentage of knockouts in his wins.
Takam is usually aggressive and busy so Joshua says: ‘I will have to take it to him first. Meet him before he starts meeting me. Hopefully at some point he will have a decision to make. Two of his defeats have been against world champions and if I knock him down he will have to think whether he wants to get up.
‘That’s what I love about boxing. Not the business. Not the belts. It’s a pure form of sport. Me and Takam coming together to make war.
‘Yes, fighting like this is a risk. But then being popular doesn’t win fights.’
Being brave, enjoying the battle and hitting like a steam-hammer helps.
Those attributes win world titles. They will surely enable him to keep his belts now, by as early as the third or fourth round. The SaTurday InTervIew — JoSh Taylor: pageS 112-113