Anthony Joshua can be the folk hero British boxing has needed since Frank Bruno’s reign
Joshua claimed the vacant British and Commonwealth heavyweight title by beating Dillian Whyte
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Your support makes all the difference.In this era of body culture we see young men devoting hours in gymnasiums to the idealised masculine form: arms like legs, shoulders like gable ends and quilted stomachs. Thus honed, a dab of fake tan, an application of guy-liner and an undersized shirt complete a look that might be described as ad-orexic.
This hyper state is intended to project a sense of power and authority. It instructs other males of the species not to mess with me, while at the same time commanding members of the opposite sex to melt on demand. At least this is how the uberdude imagines the world to be. In truth, these inflated beasts are living out a fantasy, champions without ever winning a game, heroes without ever being tested.
And then there are those rare individuals who wander off the mountain fully formed, presenting a magnificent rebuttal of Plato’s theory that perfection is materially unattainable, that it exists only as an abstraction. I give you Anthony Joshua, the antidote to the preening gym jockey, an athlete whose genes have given him gratis the size, symmetry and proportion so desperately sought by the iron-pumping fraternity.
That is only part of the story, of course. Despite his 6ft 6in, 17st 7lb mass, Joshua was not pre-destined to become the superhero incarnate. There was a time in his life when he was seduced by easy pickings, enjoying the power his impressive bulk and handsome features afforded in his Watford locale. Boxing has given him a context and a relevance that in adolescence looked to be breaking bad. Petty crime claimed him first and a court case for drug possession followed by a community service sentence were arrows pointing in the wrong direction.
“I was just like a lot of young lads. It was all about how I looked, my clothes, clubbing, girls. I wasn’t with the best group of people. The arrest changed a lot. It forced me to grow up and to respect my responsibilities. I’m not happy that I did what I did and there’s no way that kind of thing will ever happen again, but in a way I’m glad it did because it woke me up,” he said, telling his story in the immediacy of his London Olympic triumph.
Three years on from his golden hour, Joshua is entering the meat of his professional career. In the next 12 months he will, in all probability, progress to a world title challenge. It has taken him this long to grow into his talent, never quite believing in himself enough. With each clubbing right hand that has dumped 15 hard men on the canvas, he has by lumps come to realise not only how good he is but how spectacular when he joins the dots.
The whiskers had remained unproven, of course. That is the way it is with the novice pro. Dillian Whyte’s version of the kitchen-sink drama changed that, landing heavily in the second round with a brick of a left hook and taking Joshua beyond three rounds for the first time. At times Whyte’s idiosyncrasies left Joshua rooted to the spot, fishing for food. But he worked it out in the end with a right hand from hell and a heart as stout as old oak.
In this he differs from the English heavyweight he followed to Olympic gold. Audley Harrison had the same goods bestowed by nature but not the appetite for the fight. And the way the cards are falling, fate has handed Joshua a sumptuous opportunity to carve a place in the British sporting canon.
Out there in Fury-land dwells an ogre asking to be clipped about the ears. Tyson Fury can fight but, such is the distaste he engenders, Joshua is invested with the authority of a Wyatt Earp, handed a remit to clean up this town. And as he demonstrated again in the downing of Whyte, Joshua has the guns to bring Fury to account.
More significantly, he has the kind of folk aura not seen since Frank Bruno was knocking them over. Bruno was loved but ultimately chained to chronic self-esteem issues. Not this fella. What he needs now is to acquire a little of the ring nous and footwork of another London landmark, Lennox Lewis.
The British public never quite knew what to make of Lewis. Though he was London born and bred, that transatlantic drawl acquired fighting for Canada as an amateur killed the love. And though he had every punch in the book, he threw too few in the latter years to set the pulse racing. That’s what a right hand to the chops can do, in Lewis’s case a lump-hammer from Oliver McCall in 1994 and seven years later another from Hasim Rahman.
British boxing has waited a generation to deliver a crossover champion, a warrior king who connects with our primal instincts, drawing us in helplessly whether we care for the fight game or not. Whyte, also undefeated as a pro, had beaten Joshua as an amateur and, as you do, boasted of repeating the dose. He gave it all he had but ultimately the “Body Snatcher” was snatched, no longer an adversary but a convert.
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