Pumped-up Joshua takes cue from Tyson
TOWARDS the end of the long wait, Anthony Joshua found himself drawn a little to his ancestor in the heavyweight family, Mike Tyson. It was predominantly to watch the old man fight Roy Jones Jr, but it would seem he has also appropriated one of Tyson’s more famous sayings.
Its use was in the context of the Bulgarian Kubrat Pulev, with whom Joshua was scheduled to fight in 2017 but will instead face on Saturday, a year and five days after he gained revenge over Andy Ruiz Jr.
Rather a lot has happened between 2017 and now, in life and in the narrative of Joshua’s invincibility. It was on such a theme that Joshua led himself to echo what Tyson once said about opponents with grand plans.
‘You’re going to have to ask Pulev how he feels but I’m sure after my loss everybody says, “Oh, we’re going to exploit Anthony Joshua’s weaknesses” and all this nonsense. So we’ll see how confident he is until the first jab or right hand smashes him in the jaw.’
A decent soundbite but it does play to the mystery of what we will see from Joshua when he enters the SSE Arena, formerly Wembley Arena, before a crowd of just 1,000. By any measure, he will be a huge favourite to defend his IBF, WBA, IBO and WBO world titles against a 39-year-old who has fought comparatively modest opposition since his only career loss against Wladimir Klitschko in 2014.
But we must wait to see what version of Joshua presents itself, the swinger whose vulnerabilities were exploited by Ruiz in their first fight, or the jabber who won back his belts in the rematch?
Also we have to wonder how Joshua adapts to what will be almost an alien environment. By his estimate, it will have been eight years and an amateur bout in Hungary since he fought in front of such a small crowd. He said: ‘It is not bad (to have a small crowd). The pressure is off, you can get in your rhythm. I need that sometimes because I am under a lot of pressure. I am going to go in there and perform with no pressure and showcase the styles I have merged together, which is sticking and moving and aggression and knockout power..’ Anthony Joshua against Kubrat Pulev on December 12, live on Sky Sports Box Office