JOSHUA V KLITSCHKO
IBF, WBA AND IBO WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLES
WEMBLEY STADIUM TONIGHT: 10PM
THE first time Anthony Joshua went to Wembley he was a lad looking for belts. As he returns today he will be doing much the same.
The difference is that the belts he is after now are harder to come by, even more garish and his quest will be watched by a 90,000 crowd and millions of television viewers around the world.
That, and he will be inside rather than outside the stadium.
‘We used to come here for the Sunday market,’ says Britain’s 27-year- old world heavyweight champion as he inspects the venue for his gigantic clash with the living legend Wladimir Klitschko.
‘ Wembley was kind of local. Sometimes we would drive down from Watford, sometimes take the bus. It was the fake designer clothing but the belts were the best. About 20 quid.’
The IBF belt he is defending and the WBA and IBO belts he is hoping to pick up are worth rather more than that. Joshua is expecting to be paid £15million for his shift this evening and if he wins he could go on to become boxing’s first billionaire.
‘It’s a miracle,’ he says. ‘If someone had said to me back then that I ought to walk through the door to a gym instead of going to market and eight years later I would be in this stadium fighting in front of the biggest crowd in British boxing history I would have said, oh yeah, get out of here.’
But walk into a sweat shop he did one morning and here he is. The most marketable sportsman in the land having turned his misspent youth around. A cult figure coming to terms with fame, fortune and impending greatness yet surprised that crowds have started gathering when he takes his weekly washing to the launderette near his small flat in London.
‘Course I still do those things,’ he says. ‘Though I could afford a washing machine now. It gives me a mental break from the long training camps. Like when I take my son JJ and niece to the park. Kids are so pure and being with them is a holiday for me. I become a kid myself.
‘Boxing was the baby that motivated me. When I look at JJ I don’t feel more pressure to win, I see the boy to whom I will be able to hand down all I gain in life. Wisdom, material things, my legacy.’
Then he remembers weeping like a child the last time he lost a fight. That was in a world amateur championship final in distant Baku when everyone except the judges thought he had won.
‘I was walking back to the changing rooms,’ he says. ‘You don’t think you’ll ever cry because as a fighter you’re supposed to be a tough guy. But it’s the passion. All the emotion just comes out.’
Since then it has all been all wins, all laughter, no tears. Joshua is a happy soul who chuckles rather than broods.
Even on the eve of a brutal battle of the magnitude of this one against Klitschko, the full-grown man who held all but one of the world heavyweight title belts for 10 years prior to his shock defeat by Tyson Fury 17 months ago.
There are no demons in this sunlit mind, not even after a nightmare. He grins broadly when he says: ‘Yes, I’ve dreamt about losing. Then I wake up and realise it’s not reality. I’m in tune with myself and I get back to thinking positively about the task ahead.
‘I know that one man wins and one man loses. I know that if Wladimir loses at 41, it will be the end for him. I also know that if I lose I would just go back in the gym because one defeat against an icon after 18 straight victories would not define my career. But I also know I have the strength and power to defeat someone 14 years older than me.’
The jury of his peers is still out on that one, with the fight only hours away. Most see it as 50-50, this classic battle of the ages between youth and experience.
Is all this too early for Joshua after only 18 professional fights, albeit all of them won by knockout?
Freddie Roach, American master trainer of Manny Pacquiao among many champions, opines: ‘ Not necessarily. I make Anthony a marginal favourite but he mustn’t rush this one. Wladimir has a lethal hook so he must be prepared to concentrate fully for 12 rounds if necessary.’
Is it too late for Klitschko to realise his dream of joining Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and his own big brother Vitali in the elite pantheon of three-time world heavyweight champions?
Rob McCracken, who trained Joshua to Olympic gold and is now in charge in his corner, says: ‘Father Time is a nasty man when he arrives and for Wladimir he has arrived already.’
That assessment is based on the performance by Klitschko in which he was so bamboozled into shock defeat by Fury’s dancing and pot-shotting on the night he lost all his titles that he barely threw a punch until the 12th round.
His trainer, Jonathon Banks, says: ‘But for that last round when Wladimir finally found he could pull the trigger and hurt Fury I don’t know what would have happened. But that round changed everything and all his confidence is back.’
Not least because where Fury is a brilliantly bizarre one-off, Joshua is a classically orthodox left-jab, right-bang fighter the ilk of which Klitschko is accustomed to.
So while Joshua takes no opponent lightly, he is keenly aware that he is now taking a giant leap into elite class.
Klitschko has wanted for critical acclaim in US quarters, where they keep recalling he was knocked out a couple of times many moons ago, but his young nemesis says: ‘Wladimir has been badly underrated. No one dominates heavyweight boxing for more than a decade unless he is a great fighter with a very good chin. Anyone in this division can be knocked out by one huge punch.’
Even the vivid contrast in styles makes this a close call as well as a thrilling prospect.
Joshua is a mighty puncher who goes for the KO and as a consequence has boxed one-third fewer rounds than Klitschko has had fights, 44 to 68.
Klitschko — who also points out ‘I have been fighting since the year Anthony was born’ — is a concussive puncher himself as well as being a superior technical boxer.
The innocence and athleticism of professionally undefeated youth are hefty weapons in Joshua’s armoury. But the consensus of the ring fraternity is that he must use them quickly.
AJ early or Wlad late is the popular prediction.
That may be right, especially as Joshua has been piling on the muscle in his highly intensive training, leading Klitschko to intrude slightly on their mutual respect by referring to him as a body- builder ‘ who resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger.’
The risk is that if the extra bulk which is the product of all his hard work causes some stiffness he could tire in the later rounds.
Both men are supremely confident, Klitschko that he can survive an opening onslaught, Joshua that he can connect terminally before being drawn into a long, complicated fight.
Roach says he would not be surprised if it goes the distance. Like the majority, I expect a knockout.
So will our Anthony be laughing or crying shortly before midnight?
If forced to nudge the percentages from 50-50 to 51-49, I take Joshua to bring the walls of Klitschko tumbling down. Albeit with the end coming later than before in his professional incarnation.
Not that he can leave it too long. No later than the ninth.