By Tim Royner: Jarrell Miller says Anthony Joshua is considered too “posh” for the UK boxing fans, and that the more down to earth and humble Tyson Fury has surpassed AJ in popularity. ‘Big Baby’ Miller (23-0-1, 20 KOs) has been dissecting Joshua’s personality and boxing ability since the two of them signed to face each other on June 1 on DAZN and Sky Box Office at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Miller sees Joshua is a being a weak-chinned fighter, who will fall apart when he gets him inside the ring in front of large New York crowd that will be showing up to see the two large heavyweights battle it out.
“He’s not the popular one anymore,” Miller said about the 29-year-old Joshua, who has become incredibly wealthy since he turned pro in 2013. “I’m hearing ‘Tyson Fury, Tyson Fury.’ I’ve been hearing it from the fans, they say ‘AJ’s too posh’. I’m for all the underdogs out there. For those who are told they’re not good enough, too fat, don’t listen, I’m proven fact, you can go real far. Let’s go to work,” Miller said.
Neither Fury or Joshua are well known in the U.S, so it’s too early to say which of the two is better liked. But in the UK, Fury seems to be liked a lot of boxing fans. He hurt his career, though, by disappearing after he beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. If Fury beats Deontay Wilder in their rematch, which still needs to negotiated, it’s likely that he will be more popular with the British boxing fans than Joshua. Miller is looking more at the way Joshua carries himself in a regal, aristocratic-like manner, when he says he’s too “posh” to be liked by a lot of boxing fans.
Miller appears to be trying to get in good with the average boxing fan by acting more like a common person rather than someone coming from up high. Joshua has a net worth estimated at $60 million after just six years as a pro. He’s said to have turned down a $50 million offer to fight WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder last year. With the kind of money that Joshua has, it’s easy to see how he would be viewed as coming across as little too ornate and high class for some boxing fans.
Joshua (22-0, 21 KOs) will have his IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles on the line when he defends against Miller on June at at MSG in New York. Both guys will be entering the ring unbeaten. As long the fight doesn’t end in a draw, one of them will suffer their first career defeat.
Miller feels that it doesn’t matter that Joshua holds three of the four heavyweight world titles. Miller feels that titles are meaningless when it comes to the popularity contest back home in the UK, which is being won by Tyson Fury over three-belt world champion Joshua. Fury (27-0-1, 19 KOs) captured the imagination of the boxing fans in the UK with his 12 round draw against WBC champion Deontay Wilder last December.
“The plan is to stop him in seven rounds,” Miller said about Joshua.
Joshua seems uncaring about what the New Yorker Miller has to say. He sees him as irrelevant, and he plans on deconstructing his fans on June 1, and then moving on from there to bigger and better things in his career.
“It’s just another opponent, you need a dancing partner and Jarrell’s a good dancing partner,” Joshua said. “June 2 Jarrell will be irrelevant and we move on.”
This attitude by Joshua plays into what Miller says about him being too exclusive and upper class for the boxing fans in the UK to like him as much as they Tyson Fury, who seems to go out of his way to show the average boxing fans in the UK, that he’s just like them, and he cares about what they care about. Fury’s net worth is estimated at $20 million [U.S], according to The Mirror, which puts him far below Joshua. Fury’s net worth could change dramatically now that he’s recently signed a five-fight deal with Top Rank Boxing, which is rumored to be for $100 million. Even if it’s less that figure, Fury is still wealthier than he was, and he could making huge money in the near future with a rematch with Wilder, and then a fight against Joshua. Those will tremendous fights for the boxing fans. It’ll be interesting to see if Fury is still the same person after he makes a fortune fighting Joshua and Wilder or if he’s transformed into a fighter that is considered to be “posh” in the eyes of the UK boxing fans.
“All the spirit that boy’s got, talking s***, I’m going to strip it from him. I’m going to strip him of his soul,” Joshua said in talking mean about what he plans on doing to ‘Big Baby’ Miller on June 1. “I’m going to rearrange his face. I’m going to reconstruct his face and his body.”
Whatever Joshua does to Miller, it might not change his popularity in the UK. If Fury continues at the pace he’s at, he could arguably be the #1 star in boxing in the UK, and Joshua would be sitting at number #2. Belts don’t matter when it comes to popularity. We saw that in the first fight between Saul Canelo Alvarez and former IBF/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin in 2017. Even though GGG held three world titles, Canelo was the more popular fighter, and had the Las Vegas crowd eating out of his hand during the fight. For Joshua to become popular like Fury, he might need personality overhaul to be more of an average guy, and that might be possible without a lot of hard work on his part.
For the U.S boxing fans, who focus enjoying action-packed fights, they’re likely going to like watching Joshua’s fights more than they will Fury’s. Joshua is more of a brawler than Fury, and those are the type of fighters that U.S fans like to watch, especially when they have to pay to see the fights.