Joshua targets era of domination

No longer the only British world heavyweight champion.

Credit: Reuters

Anthony Joshua, just 26 years old, only 16 fights and a mere 34 rounds experienced, is already smashing records at a monstrous gallop. Photo by: Peter Cziborra

No longer the only British world heavyweight champion. Brace yourself for gladiator night in the colosseum called Wembley Stadium, Tyson Fury.

Not for much longer the most recent undisputed world heavyweight champion. Prepare to doff the cap, Lennox Lewis.

Anthony Joshua, just 26 years old, only 16 fights and a mere 34 rounds experienced, is already smashing records at a monstrous gallop.

Get used to it. Not just the hardcore boxing fans. Also the wider population clamouring for tickets. Like Jose Mourinho begging at the door for last-minute admission and then getting in line in the dressing room corridor for an audience with his new best friend, the Extra-Special One.

The age of Joshua has dawned and he intends it to last a decade. ‘I don’t see myself ever losing,’ he says. ‘I intend on completely unifying the heavyweight championship within the next 18 months. Then I can see my era of dominance lasting 10 years, until I’m 36. I feel sorry for Fury and the other heavyweights out there. To be the kingpin I need their big names on my resumé. You are as good as who you fight.’

Here comes the crowning superstar of a glorious renaissance for boxing in these sceptred isles.

The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland boasted 11 current world champions going into Saturday night fever on the Thames. Now it has a dozen. It was already boom time. Now it’s boom-boom.

Two bone-crunching right handers from Joshua reduced the reigning IBF belt-holder to pitiful surrender inside two visceral rounds. It should have been Jurassic Park, not the O2.

‘Prince’ Charles Martin arrived from America wearing a goldencrown and a red velvet robe. He left London clutching a royal pay-cheque but was even more grateful to escape with his life.

Twice he crashed to the canvas. First on to the seat of his pants, then out for a count he judiciously avoided beating.

‘He didn’t want to get up,’ says Joshua with that chuckle which can be mischievous or menacing. ‘I don’t blame him. People want to see blood. I have no problem drawing blood. I enjoy it.’

It will be a short while until Fury — or Wladimir Klitschko in the unlikely event that July 9 turns out to be revenge rather than repeat — tastes the power of the young man known as AJ. Next spring most likely. Although Joshua is itching to lay hands on the travelling man as well as his belts, saying of all the insults: ‘I’m not going to speak too much about him but I am going to silence him and all the heavyweights who knock me.’

This is self-belief, first born of his winning of Olympic gold, not fanciful arrogance. Even though Joshua admits it was rehearsing his victory speech, not worrying about the biggest fight of his life which he knew he would win by knockout, which ruined his pre-fight nap.

Big heads don’t go home to a modest flat in Golders Green to tell their mother how it went the night before, then help her do the shopping.

While he and Fury await their mutual moment, the Gipsy King might care to take a reality check after tweeting that Joshua is still slow and useless.

Although most of Fury’s outrageous utterances are tongue-in-cheek, this brought into focus the other prime asset which reinforces Joshua’s destructive power.

They say that speed kills. It is important to emphasise that in boxing this is a figure of speech. But it is the blistering pace of Joshua’s punches which make him scarily dangerous.

Martin was well aware of the potency of the Joshua right but he hardly saw the first left jab to hit him and recoiled anxiously from the impact. From that instructive moment on, this southpaw could have had three hands and still been battered silly. Joshua — ‘this was the night I added control and calculation to my business’ — used that classic jab to set up the half-dozen rights in the first round whichprefaced the finish one minute and 32 seconds into the second.

Martin gasped like a fish out of water, his left hand which was renowned for its own concussive potency flapping like a feeble gill.

He had won the title virtually by default and although he was unbeaten he departs as one of the weakest champions in heavyweight history. Joshua enjoyed himself, although he says: ‘I love a punch-up too. It’s so entertaining for me. It excites the fans and I want to give them value for money. But I know there will be tougher nights ahead and I will become even better to deal with them.’

In addition to the aforementioned ticking of historical boxes, Joshua has to be the most relaxed of all heavyweight champions.

Was he excited by this achievement? ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘This is just the beginning. When I’ve got all the belts I’ll be happy. When I retire as undisputed and undefeated champion I’ll be happier. Delighted? When I go to heaven.’

He was disappointed that the Sunday morning media frenzy prevented him attending church with his mother. Nor does he want to be a seen as a role model, impeccable of behaviour though he is. ‘Nothing I achieve will ever change me,’ he says. ‘Even though I now have the momentum to achieve a lot. I am who I am. I’ll always be myself.’

Being Anthony Joshua is good enough, For his fast-growing army of believers. And for his mum. – Daily Mail

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