Power and the glory
Anthony Joshua on his long journey to tonight’s Wembley mega-fight with Wladimir Klitschko
It is a dreich January night on a drab industrial estate along the M40 in west London. The wind is howling; the rain persistent. The few passers-by rush on, fumbling with badly behaved umbrellas, eyes down, mood gloomy.
Something, though, changes at the approach to the Black Island Studios. A worker is outside puffing a sneaky fag, and he is buzzing. Through a side door to a cavernous hangar, scores of good-looking youngsters are coming to the end of a day’s film shoot. There is a definite sense of occasion, of excitement.
An amateur boxer – all loose limbs and liniment – jabs in the ring towards a massive camera, dangerously balanced as its operator acts as shadow sparrer. The extras ringside are whooping and hollering. Something is stirring. Up above them, looking on with vague disinterest, is the cause of this frenzy. Anthony Joshua, Britain’s International Boxing Federation world heavyweight champion, has been here for hours, making a promotional film about his life’s journey and close relationship with his mother for his sponsors, Lucozade Sport. While the others are beside themselves, the man himself is so laid-back, you might say, as to be virtually horizontal.
He has some tale to tell: a kid from Watford who could have gone to prison for drug dealing; who took up boxing late and quickly won Olympic gold before turning professional. After 18 professional fights (18 victories, 18 knockouts), at 27 he will tonight play the starring role in the biggest fight in post-war British boxing history.
Organisers have sold 90,000 tickets at Wembley for his clash with Wladimir Klitschko, the Ukrainian who has dominated the heavyweight scene for a decade. The last tranche of 10,000 sold out in just 25 minutes. So, it is not just boxing’s customary hyperbole when promoter Eddie Hearn claims he could have sold out the venue twice over.
Yet Joshua – swinging on a cheap, grey plastic chair, like an oversize college student half listening to a less than fascinating lecture – is entirely unfazed. He speaks slowly, and so softly it is hard to hear him above the hubbub below; good-natured, if disengaged. There is no bombast.
Can this really be the hottest young heavyweight boxing talent on the planet?
And then, just once, he cuts loose, as if putting together a sudden, devastating combination of body and head shots. It comes as he is discussing what is required in a fight, and, halfway through, there is a sudden switch in his language and tone – and such a violent departure from his demeanour hitherto that it is quite shocking.
“You need luck, timing as well,” he says, sitting forward. “Your character gets you through. I’m a big believer in reputation, in being good and being respectful, but when I’m in the ring, I’m a savage. Some people get caught up in a fantasy world and keep savageness out of the ring.
“I don’t change. I’m still cool and calculated, but I have no problem breaking someone’s jaw. No problem with that at all.”
So, who is Anthony Joshua, and why is the boxing world quite so excited about him? What are his ambitions and what limits are there on what he can achieve?
He was born in October 1989 – a Libra, he is quick to point out (polite, loyal, diplomatic, social, if you believe that stuff. Joshua instead describes himself as hungry, humble, driven, dedicated) – and he was brought up in a
‘I am a big believer in being good and respectful but when I am in the ring, I am a savage’
Watford cul-de-sac, “six houses on one side, six houses on the other and a green in the middle”.
“My dad is big Josh, very hard-working and respected in the area. He is energised and loud. My mum, Yeta, is very calm, more calculated.”
His parents have separated, but remain friendly, and he lives with his mother. He prefers her not to come to his fights – his father will be ringside tonight, she will be at home. He has an older sister, Janet, and an 18-month-old son, Joseph Bayley Temiloluwa Prince Joshua. He has split from the baby’s mother, Nicole.
Aged 13, he moved to Nigeria – he has the nation’s outline tattooed on his bicep – with his mother and sister and was sent to boarding school. His mother was looking to start a business. “I’m not sure what. I was too young. I couldn’t tell you. Never asked.”
It could have been traumatic for an adolescent, but Joshua does not see it that way. Although the school was keen on discipline, he liked being on his own. It allowed him to focus, and equipped him for the regime of his training camps.
“I don’t really need to be around friends all the time. I learnt discipline. You had to wake up at five and go round with a bell to get everyone up. Shirts had to be ironed, trousers ironed. You fetched your own water.”
A year or so later, the family returned to the UK, and he went back to Kings Langley School, near Watford. He is the first to admit he was not exactly motivated, either academically or athletically, and returns regularly now to tell students to buck their ideas up. Do as I say, not as I did.
“Where you had a sports day and district county championships, it was just nice to have a day out of school. I just had natural talent so didn’t practise at all. I always had fun and was never serious. I could have done a lot better for myself.
“What I think benefited me about going to school there was that it was multicultural – there were more white kids. I’ve seen friends grow up in just Asian or black neighbourhoods and you don’t know how to socialise out of your own. I think it was a real benefit being around different cultures. I respect their culture and they respect mine.
“People say: ‘Oh, you’re a boxing champion, but you’re so humble.’ It’s not that. I’ve just been around different people. Some can be rude or withdrawn because they are not used to dealing with others. I was exposed to lots of cultures.”
It has given him an interest in religion, but no specific faith, he says, and we meet just after he has come under fire on social media from some knuckleheads after tweeting a picture of himself praying at a mosque in Dubai. He explains: “I was there with a friend [who is a Muslim] and I was just showing respect to them.”
Joshua floated after school – he completed a music diploma with the thought of becoming a sound engineer; then worked on a building site as a bricklayer. The PR minder jolts upright when he reveals he was drinking heavily then. “I’ve given you some work to do,” he jokes to her.
“I nearly became an alcoholic then. You know what it is, you become a product of your environment. When you’re on the site, and they talk about going to the pub. So I did. I was boxing at the time, but I wasn’t serious.”
His cousin, Ben Ilyemi, got him into boxing at the Finchley Amateur Boxing Club in Barnet, north London. It was 2007, and, at 18, he was the latest of starters.
Klitschko had won his first world title almost 10 years earlier, but Joshua was a quick learner. He was Olympic champion within five years – 16 years after Klitschko had taken gold – and turned professional the next year. Within three years, he had his first world title, defeating Charles Martin at the O2 Arena for the IBF belt in April 2016. Now, he is now going for them all.
Joshua explains: “I got into boxing through my cousin Ben. I was also at a stage where I knew I wanted to improve myself physically and mentally. At first, I struggled with it, the discipline required and the intensity of the training. It took me a while to get into it but something clicked and that was it.
“I didn’t know immediately I could do it. It was tough. I came in to it so late that lots of people in the gym had been boxing for years, but I knew I enjoyed it and wanted to push myself with it. The more I did it, the more I enjoyed it and the more I dedicated myself and, with it, success came.”
Boxing has saved him. He was remanded in Reading jail in 2009 after getting caught up in what he described as “fighting and other crazy stuff ”, and wore an electronic tag for a time on his release.
And he admits he was lucky to escape with a 12-month community order after he was caught in 2011 – while wearing his Team GB tracksuit – with 8oz of cannabis hidden in a sports bag when he was stopped for speeding. He could have faced a 14-year sentence for dealing – and could easily have missed the London Olympics, where victory set him on his way in the professional game.
How does he look back on that guy now? He laughs, a little uneasily. “I was ambitious, but I was channelling the energy in the wrong place. Boxing helped me through that.” He believes his arrest changed him, and forced him to grow up. It woke him up.
And what about the journey – short in distance and time but long in achievement – from Finchley in 2007 to Wembley tonight? “It’s the same situation. Klitschko has two arms and two legs, no different from any of us. Back in the day, if you told me I’d be fighting Klitschko, I’d be s----ing myself. But I don’t really care now. You just learn to deal with the challenges.
“It’s not confidence. It’s more what it is, and I’m going to do it as well as I can. I think I have more fear of losing than being overconfident: bad news echoes more than success stories, and I’ve heard so many negative stories in boxing. I’m scared of following that path – I’m trying to get it right for fear of getting it wrong.
“Also, I’m a product of good trainers and coaches and when I’ve been tired and shattered, they’ve never said, ‘Know what? Have a day off ’. They are on my case.”
His regime when he beat Eric Molina last year? Ninety-eight days in camp, 392 organic meals, 210 protein shakes, 98 fish oils and 420 litres of water. He did 350km of interval training, 42 strengthtraining sessions and 28 physio sessions. Oh, and 660 rounds of sparring and 210 miles of running.
And this is what it is really about – he may enjoy the showbiz of a video shoot, but it is the ferocious training and focus that make him the real deal. “I want to unify the division and fight for many years to come. I don’t want to get carried away but I want to build a longstanding career.”
So, what would he be if he had not found boxing? “I don’t know. I couldn’t answer. Maybe I would have been on the building site. Maybe I would have been in the pub right now. It’s Friday. I could still have been in Watford.” Watch the new Anthony Joshua advert on Lucozade Sport’s YouTube channel, which supports their Made to Move campaign, aiming to get one million people moving more by 2020