Cagey Joshua takes safety-first route
Briton adds WBO crown to his haul of boxing titles One fight away from being undisputed champion
Council, World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation belts. Since the IBF title was added to that list in the late 1980s, only Mike Tyson, Buster Douglas, Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe and Lennox Lewis have held all three simultaneously.
Even the Klitschko brothers, Vitali and Wladimir, fell short of owning all three major titles at the same time. Before Tyson, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier and George Foreman were among the great undisputed champs.
Three major world titles were on the line here: Joshua’s IBF and WBA belts, and Parker’s World Boxing Organisation “strap”. Out there, unclaimed, is Wilder’s World Boxing Council crown. Written off as a dead attraction, heavyweight boxing has revived itself with three champions who were all unbeaten. Joshua was 20-0, Parker 24-0 and Wilder 40-0. A boxing archivist would be hard pushed to find another era where the three leading giants had won 84 times without losing once.
The appetite in Britain for marquee fights that double up as huge social events with big attendance bragging rights has carried Joshua to astonishing popularity.
His engaging popularity helps. In the streets of Cardiff groups of lads reeled around chanting his name as if he were a football team. The city was delirious with anticipation. This power, which Joshua earned with his momentous victory over Wladimir Klitschko, is lucrative but fragile, as Takam reminded Joshua last time out in this stadium.
If any doubt remained, Alexander Povetkin removed it, along with David Price’s consciousness, in their heavyweight bout. The free hit by Povetkin to Price’s jaw when the British fighter was already stunned brought paramedics surging to the ring.
The disturbing disorientation on Price’s face as he fell was a picture of neural malfunction – and horrible to observe, though boxing attendees can hardly pick and choose which moments they like, assuming the referee is doing his job and protecting the fighters from unnecessary risk.
In this case, the official would have been derided for stopping the fight before Povetkin was able to land his final blow. Equally, Price was exposed to a terrifying risk as that Russian glove swung.
As Price returned to his feet, and Dillian Whyte rose to challenge Povetkin, saying: “I want to fight him” and “easy money,” Michael Buffer began his climb through the ropes, in red MC’s jacket, and the Principality Stadium throbbed with pulse-raising tunes.
“Welcome to the Lion’s den,” Joshua announced on the big screens. British, Samoan and New Zealand flags adorned the ring after interminable ring-walks and pre-ambles.
With more defensive work still to do, Joshua said after the fight: “That’s secured another championship belt. I stuck behind the jab. As I said to you, this would be about boxing prowess. Joseph Parker said it would be a war, but I said it would be about boxing prowess.
“The main thing not to forget is: I am the unified heavyweight champion of the world.” The next target is “undisputed.” The road to that is rocky, but we can hardly fault Joshua’s haul of belts from 21 fights.