‘AJ’s twice my size but he can’t be calling me Little Josh’

IN the gym, Anthony Joshua is

‘Big Josh’ — understandable at

6ft 5in and nearly 18st — to avoid any confusion.

He may tower over his namesake in and outside the ropes in Josh Buatsi, but the Olympic light heavyweight is anything but

‘Little Josh’.

“If we’re both in the gym, he’s Big Josh and I’m JB or Buatsi,” said the 5ft 9in Londoner, who gets his first taste of the limelight when fighting on the undercard in Cardiff.

“He might be twice my size but he can’t be calling me Little Josh!” he added, laughing. Buatsi is treading a similar path to that of Joshua, who won Olympic gold at London 2012 and was crowned heavyweight champion less than five years later.

“It’s perfect to be able to see the pathway Josh has taken and that he’s just done everything right,” he said. “To have that to lean on every day is great.”

The 24-year-old Buatsi (left) is being billed as potentially Britain’s next big thing in the ring, to the extent that Floyd Mayweather Jr enquired about signing him before the Briton opted to come under Joshua’s management team.

Just two fights and seven rounds into the professional ranks, he knows it is early days, but he gets his first real taste of the big time on Saturday night when he will fight 33-year-old Frenchman Saidou Sall.

“The big nights are something that I want to be a part of,” he said. “You have to thrive on it, you can’t shy away from it. It’s an opportunity to entertain, to show people who you are and what you have.”

Buatsi was born in Accra, Ghana, but moved to Croydon at the age of nine. Aged 15 or 16, he had a first taste of boxing and was immediately hooked.

His parents were reticent at first but they are now his biggest supporters. His step-up from the amateur to pro ranks has, by his own admission, been both exhausting and time consuming.

But in the year or so since the Rio Games, where he won bronze, he has not wavered in his self-belief.

“I know I’ll be world champion one day,” he added.