The Curious Case of Anthony Joshua

By Boxing News - 02/11/2023 - Comments

By Eóin Kennedy: April 1st is the date that has been chosen for Anthony Joshua’s redemption story to begin. It is curious that a man who has twice been the unified heavyweight champion of the world would need a redemption story but then again, Joshua’s career has been a truly curious one when you actually examine it.

Joshua came straight to the professional boxing ranks from the London 2012 Olympics with a gold medal and a million dollar smile, and effectively had the same commercial effect for Matchroom Boxing as Hulk Hogan did for the WWE in the eighties. Joshua was a mainstream star straight out of the gate, and with that would come different opportunities and challenges. The greatest opportunity obviously being that Joshua was fast tracked to a world title shot against the worst heavyweight champion in recent memory, that man, Charles Martin traveled to London and more or less handed Joshua the IBF belt. It’s not Joshua’s fault that the opponent he defeated to win his first world title was beyond a lame duck, Joshua is there to fight and not pick opponents, but the fast tracking on the part of Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn can be classed as a stroke of genius or a rushed project that’s now grinding to a halt depending how you look at it.

Regardless of what happens next in Joshua’s career, even if he loses to Jermaine Franklin on April 1st, the career that the Londoner has had already has been incredible by any metric. Inside the ring, Joshua has won Olympic gold and is a two-time world heavyweight champion.

Outside of the ring, he is a commercial giant with a plethora of highly lucrative endorsements and has filled stadia and broken pay-per-view records for years. But curiously, after all those achievements, Joshua is still searching for the respect which he doesn’t receive from the boxing community. Joshua’s craving for respect is probably tied into many of the criticisms that get flung his way, such as; his path to the world title being easy, that he beat Wladimir Klitschko after Tyson Fury already had, that his rematch win against Andy Ruiz was a cowardly performance. The list goes on.

The genius of Hearn’s promotion of Joshua is in that very few sport’s stars every generation reach the commercial heights that Anthony Joshua has. He’s up there in the highest echelons with the likes of LeBron James and Lionel Messi. Commercially Hearn, along with Joshua’s own management company, 258, could not have hit more of a home run with Joshua as an in-demand commodity. So, why does Joshua seem so downhearted and despondent in recent interviews? What triggered his emotional monologue after the rematch loss to Oleksandr Usyk? The simple answer, it would seem, is respect.

Previous to the two fights with Usyk, Joshua would step to the microphone and launch into his carefully crafted and child-friendly speeches spouting insightful gems such as the now trademark, “stay humble.” Joshua was a brand manager’s dream, hence the commercial success, but the world in which he operates lampooned him. Just like Joshua’s patented saying, Hulk Hogan’s wholesome message, ‘Say Your Prayers, Take Your Vitamins,’ also eventually wore thin with fans. Sometimes people just get sick of the good guy, especially when he stops winning.

Boxing fans have long grown tired of Joshua’s dull and repeated mantras, and at the kick-off press conference for his upcoming fight with Jermaine Franklin, it seemed like the former two-time world champion had left the PR playbook at the door and brought more of an edge. When Hearn asked him what motivates him, the London Olympian responded, “money.” Anthony Joshua version one would never have made what could have been interpreted as a crass response. He would definitely have been waxing lyrical about legacy and being a warrior, which of course, is very admirable, but this version of Joshua looks like he has had enough of playing the good guy. Joshua sees his contemporaries like Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder behave however they wish and how much fans love them for their authenticity, and he wants in on the action. Even Hulk Hogan had to become a bad guy eventually.

Whether or not this second coming of Anthony Joshua ultimately won’t depend on whether he’s a corny good guy or an edgy bad guy outside of the ring; he will be evaluated on results on the inside. If one truly wanted to play devil’s advocate about Eddie Hearn’s handling of Anthony Joshua’s career, they will probably have to wait until after the next few months play out. If Joshua beats Franklin and Dillian Whyte back to back, well, he’s right back in the world title mix, and the biggest fights of his career amazingly still lie ahead. If he loses either fight, then it’s likely the end of the road, and then, and only then, can critics ask did Hearn rush Joshua? Seems like a ridiculous thought to ponder given what he’s already achieved, but should Joshua lose again, even Hearn has declared that his career is probably over. Anthony Joshua is thirty-three years old, and for heavyweight boxers, that makes him a baby. Given his cathartic moment in the ring after his second loss to Usyk, he certainly looks like a man who is feeling the heat at the top of his division and his declarations that he took up boxing later in life and hasn’t had many amateur contests more than alludes to a glaring lack of confidence against the skilled boxers in the division. He should beat Franklin and Whyte, but if he doesn’t, and it truly is the end of the road, his career will have finished without facing Fury or Wilder at such a young age. These are still purely hypotheticals, but the next few months certainly are absolutely critical in the already curious career of Anthony Joshua.