What do I say to Fury? He has a lot of potential!
Joshua goads champion... but must not slip up again
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 i nstead f ace on Saturday, a year and five days after he gained revenge over Andy Ruiz.
Rather a lot has happened between 2017 and now, in life and in the narrative of Joshua’s invincibility, and suffice to say there are fewer today who see the Brit winning as a foregone conclusion. 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 retain 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 compromised entertainment for pragmatism in winning back his belts in the rematch?
Also we have to wonder how Joshua adapts to what will be almost an al i en 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 and a little over two since the second of his fights in the more appropriate setting of this arena’ s neighbour, Wembley Stadium. It offers a glimpse into the pressures that have accompanied Joshua’s rise that he views the relative quiet as a good thing.
As 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.’
The risk, of course, is that this relatively understated fight with Pulev comes accompanied by distracting talk about bouts with Tyson Fury. Joshua possibly slipped into a similar trap before the first Ruiz encounter so will be well-briefed in the imperative of not overlooking the task in hand.
At the very least he is making the right noises and even used the example of Tyson’s exhibition with Roy Jones Jr to make a point about focused minds. ‘ I liked it,’ said Joshua. ‘But what I really liked was his attitude; the way he conditioned his mind to overcome any obstacle.
‘It’s his mindset. He still has that and it’s important. So I took a lot from that warrior’s mindset. It’s what I’m trying to work on.’
He added: ‘I’m not interested in partying any more. I’m older, wiser, I’ve had to do a lot of maturing, a lot of learning about what it means to be heavyweight champion. Before I was just happy go lucky, going through this box ing industry with a smile on my face, but now I really understand it. So not so much the partying, not with a big crowd any more, just me and my team and trying to achieve good things in boxing.’
A showdown with Fury appears to be closer than ever and in what may have been an attempt to goad him into a fight, Joshua suggested he come to work under him at his 258 Management company.
‘I do think he should come over and let us handle his career,’ Joshua said. ‘He’s a superstar in the making with the right management. He could go all the way. Build it up, award him Sports Personality of the Year. That video [when he asked to be r emoved f r om t he SPOTY shortlist] should be him saying, “I’m accepting my award”, not that, “I don’t want to be a part of it”.
‘We’ll have a look at his PR, strip it all back and make this fight what it’s supposed to be. He’s got a lot of potential.’
A nice pat on the head for a WBC world champion. Any fight between the two of them would be one for the ages. Which makes it even more essential that there are no further slips on the stepping stones.