BOXING legend Anthony Joshua believes he will make history if he beats Joseph Parker when the pair square up in the ring for their big fight tonight.
The heavyweight champ will be defending his IBF, WBA and IBO belts and will pick up Parker’s WBO belt if he wins against the 26-year-old from New Zealand. A whopping 80,000 people will watch the big unification bout at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium on Saturday and millions more will tune in to watch on telly. Here JAMES MOORE has put together everything you need to know about the burly Brit… 1 AJ, now 28, was born in Watford on October 15, 1989, to Nigerian mum Yeta, a social worker, and dad Robert, also of Nigerian descent. 2 They split when he was five and Joshua grew up on a tough council estate with his brother and two sisters. 3 Joshua has a tattoo of Nigeria on his right shoulder with the word “Wisdom” above it and loves traditional yam and egusi soup. 4 At school he was nicknamed Femi, from his middle name, Oluwafemi. He was a promising footballer and sprinter, running the 100m in 11.6sec. 5 But he had several brushes with the law, once ending up on remand in Reading Prison for what he described as “fighting and other crazy stuff”. 6 He became a bricklayer and only took up boxing at the age of 18 when his cousin, Ben Ileyemi, suggested it. Joshua himself admitted: “But for boxing, I would be behind 7 bars.” Becoming a British amateur champ in 2010, he went on to pick up silver at the World Amateur Championships and was recruited for Team GB’s boxing squad. 8 In 2011, he was arrested in possession of cannabis, while wearing his Team GB tracksuit. He avoided jail but said of the incident: “It woke me up.” 9 At the 2012 Olympic Games in London Joshua won a gold medal, defeating the reigning super-heavyweight champion, Italian Roberto Cammarelle. He was later made an MBE.
10 In July 2013 Joshua turned professional and has not lost a fight since – all 20 of his wins have come in knockouts. 11 In April 2017 he defeated Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko in front of a 90,000 crowd at Wembley Stadium, followed by Carlos Takam in October. 12 Standing 6ft 6in tall, with a reach of 82in, Joshua weighs in at up to 18st with 19in guns. 13 A lover of Nando’s, his daily diet sees him gobble 5,000 calories a day. 14 Joshua is reckoned to have earned a whopping £16million from his boxing career with another £13m on the way from his bout with Parker. But he is aiming to become a billionaire. He says: “It’s hard, but it’s possible.” 15 He already has lucrative sponsorship deals with Under Armour, Lucozade and Jaguar and also runs his own gym. 16 AJ’s hobbies include playing chess and listening to the music of American rapper 50 Cent. 17 He loves his motors too, owning a £150,000 personalised Range Rover with diamonds stitched into the seats. Yet he still lives with his mum in the north London council flat he bought for her. 18 Joshua also bought a £500,000 flat in Finchley, north London, for his former lover Nicole Osborne, a pole dancing teacher, who is mother to his two-year-old son, Joseph. 19 In his time, Joshua has been romantically linked to singer Rita Ora as well as models Cara Delevingne and Bella Hadid. 20 Former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis says of AJ: “Can he be an all-time great? Yes. Yes. He can do anything he wants.” Joshua v Parker is live on Sky Box Office tonight.