Joshua the man to take boxing back to the top

Heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua looks set to become boxing’s biggest global attraction in years.

Anthony Joshua celebrates his victory over Wladimir Klitschko in the IBF, WBA and IBO heavyweight world title bout at Wembley Stadium on Sunday

There are two types of boxing, so it is said: heavyweight boxing and everything else. By winning the most thrilling world heavyweight title fight in more than 20 years on Sunday, Anthony Joshua is already outgrowing the UK market as he looks set to become the sport’s biggest global attraction in years.

At 28, Joshua has created the type of excitement not seen since the days of Mike Tyson. But while Tyson terrified people and was unpredictable, Joshua is a marketing man’s dream who already has a flood of blue chip sponsors beating down his door.

American TV are already pushing for him to box on the other side of the Atlantic, while there have been talks with foreign governments, including China, about staging one of his title defences. Much like a grand prix in Formula One, the right to stage a Joshua fight could soon be a national status symbol.

Sunday’s success has sent the ambitions of those pushing Joshua’s career sky high. Once the dream had been for Joshua to box at Vicarage Road, the ground of his hometown football team, Watford. Now, after filling Wembley Stadium in only his 19th professional bout, the cavernous surrounds of the O2 arena feel a little cramped, even if talk of world domination has Joshua’s head spinning.

“I’m not in a rush to go anywhere,” Joshua said. “As long as we have entertaining fights like that, we can stay here as long as we want, and then, if it gets to the stage where we want to travel abroad and a promoter links up, or HBO or Showtime can do a deal with Eddie [Hearn, his promoter], or a government funds it in Dubai or Africa, we’ll definitely go abroad. But it has to be right for my career. If it’s working in the UK at the minute, let’s not rush to change it.”

However, if Joshua is to box twice a year, with the aim of remaining fresh for a decade at the top, it seems sensible that he will box once in Britain, when he can fill an outdoor stadium in the summer, and once abroad, where he would possibly fulfil his mandatory commitments to the governing bodies.

Already one of his belts, the IBF, is at risk because he has been ordered to defend the title against Kubrat Pulev, a Bulgarian who was stopped in five rounds by Wladimir Klitschko in 2014. If Joshua’s rematch with Klitschko goes ahead, he could be stripped of the title, unless the IBF and Pulev can be persuaded to take stepaside money. But even if they do, he would only take one step back in the queue and would have to get his chance eventually if Joshua wants to get all the belts.

“The hardest part of the job now is to negotiate the politics and decide which belts to keep,” Hearn said. “That’s something you’ve got to plan around. If you have to pick up a mandatory defence, which isn’t appealing to the UK, that’s the one you go and do in China, America or the Middle East.”

The hope is that the governing bodies would be keen to fall into line in order to be involved with such a big star, but the IBF can be sticklers for their rule book and stripped Tyson Fury of his title within weeks of him beating Klitschko in 2015 for agreeing to a rematch. Hearn’s negotiations with the IBF started soon after Joshua’s win.

“I just went up to Darryl Peoples, who is the IBF chairman, and said, ‘Congratulations, you’ve got the biggest star in world boxing as your world heavyweight champion — and I’ll talk to you on Monday about that mandatory.”

There has not been a truly global boxing superstar since the era of Muhammad Ali, when big fights were dotted around the world.

Ali’s two most famous bouts, the “Rumble In The Jungle” against George Foreman and the “Thrilla in Manila” against Joe Frazier took place respectively in Zaire and the Philippines, while Ali also boxed in Indonesia, Japan, Germany and Puerto Rico.

Other big heavyweight fights of the time, involving Foreman, Frazier and Ken Norton, also took place in Jamaica and Venezuela. But it is in the US that Joshua could have the biggest impact.

Since the 1980s, the money offered by casinos has brought most big fights to Las Vegas. Floyd Mayweather is the biggest-earning star in boxing history but did not box outside Las Vegas for the last decade of his career.

Hearn is keen on a different strategy with Joshua and favours going to New York, boxing’s traditional home in the US, dating back to the 1920s and the days of Jack Dempsey.

“I’d like to see him fight at Madison Square Garden, just as a fight fan, for the heavyweight world title,” Hearn said. “Vegas doesn’t really flick my switch as much as New York and Madison Square Garden. It depends on what US TV comes up with.”

While Las Vegas casinos continue to be big investors in boxing in the US, there is a strong argument to suggest that they have actually harmed the sport in the long run as it made promoters lazy. Instead of working on building a live fanbase for the sport, some American promoters were happy to rely on television contracts and casino money to stage fights. It meant boxers seldom had a hometown fanbase as they have in Britain, and live attendances dwindled.

Into this void has stepped mixed martial arts, which remains a fringe sport in the UK but is big business in the US, where the focus has been on building live attendances to create an event to impress television audiences.

The cost had also begun to turn fans against boxing. Nearly all big fights in the US are on pay-per-view, with fans often having to pay $US50 ($66) or more to watch.

Yet too often they felt short-changed, particularly after Mayweather’s long-awaited fight with Manny Pacquiao turned into a tepid affair.

Joshua, like Tyson 25 years before him, seems to offer guaranteed entertainment.

It took Joshua a long time to get to America, after the conviction for drug possession in 2011 that had threatened his Olympic dream prevented him from getting a visa. He was finally given permission to travel this year on a promotional trip.

He punched the air as he came into the arrivals lounge, a gesture that was greeted with cheers by hundreds of protesters who mistook him for a passenger who had just beaten President Trump’s travel ban. For a moment Joshua believed they were fans who had come to greet him.

The next time he lands in the US, he could really be getting an impressive welcoming party.

The Times