I was Anthony Joshua's first-ever amateur opponent - and this is what it was like

Nathan Brede recalls his unforgettable encounter with the future world heavyweight champion at a pub in Finchley in 2008

Thursday, November 27, 2008 is a day that will be forever etched into the memory of a Hertfordshire father-of-four called Nathan Brede.

Exactly a decade on, however, he will not be doing anything special to mark the occasion. As usual, he will be up early and out of the door, leaving behind the chaos of the family home.

These days he runs a successful groundwork company called Pro Digging, and is a specialist in brickwork, driveways and patios. Once he's back from work, he will take over childcare duties from his partner.

But on this day, in the odd quiet moment, he might just find himself thinking about the world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua and what might have been had their paths never crossed 10 years ago.

Brede was only 18 when he realised life on the building site was beginning to take its toll on his waistline. Daily fry-ups at whatever greasy spoon was closest had left the 5ft 10in teenager over 200lbs.

He had also developed an unusual buzz for violence and had found himself straying into trouble on nights out. The boxing gym, he thought, would kill two birds with one stone.

“I was overweight when I started boxing,” Brede tells The Independent.

“When you're in my line of work, everyone is always down the caff [sic], and you're eating there every day. The weight creeps on because it's not the best food. And you could be sat on a digger for hours at a time so it's not that physical.

“Because of that I ballooned up in weight so I thought I'd give boxing a go to get some weight off me.”

And he was good, too. Having strolled into his local club, the now defunct Minateur ABC, in the summer of 2008, he was already handling himself in sparring by the time autumn came around.

At around the same time, an imposing 6ft 6in street kid known to his close friends as Femi had followed his cousin Ben Ileyemi into the Finchley ABC. He, too, adapted to the boxing gym quickly and before too long his coaches were thinking of a debut.

Ditto Brede, despite the fact his excess bodyweight kept him firmly in the +91kg super-heavyweight division, where 6ft 6in athletes lay in wait.

“I was real keen to get a fight as quickly as possible,” he adds. “At the time I didn't know too much about boxing so I was just raring to go.

“Looking back, maybe it happened too quickly because I was too overweight. That's not good because then you're in there with big blokes.”

As it happened, the date was set for November 27, when Brede would travel to an Irish pub in Tufnell Park called the Boston Arms.

Brede's encounter with the young Joshua was at the Boston Arms in Finchley (Google)

Finchley's latest club show would take place in the boozer's adjacent function room and they needed an opponent for their own super-heavyweight no-bouter.

“I reckon it was about three months that I'd been training when they arranged my first bout,” Brede says. “I told them I wanted to fight, I was doing well in sparring and enjoying it.

“It was an away show, at the Boston Arms. I didn't know who I was against, they just told me, 'you're boxing'.

“At the time, I even remember my coach saying that Finchley were not totally sure that they were going to take the bout. Joshua had not been at the club long and they were thinking about giving him some more time before his debut.”

So off Brede headed to Tufnell Park. As is standard at all amateur shows, boxers arrive early in order to visit the on-site doctor before getting weighed in. It was there that Brede first laid eyes on Anthony Joshua.

“I remember seeing him,” Brede recalls. “He was this great big lump, but I still wanted to take the fight. I had travelled there so I didn't want to go home without boxing. I think he outweighed me by about 8kg.

“He was huge but honestly I wasn't fazed one bit by the idea of getting in there with him. Obviously, it's just a fight at the end of the day.

“Minateur were umming and aahing about taking the fight because of the size difference but when I said, ‘I don't mind’ they went ahead with it.

“I'm only 5ft 10in, he's 6ft 6in and he was tall and ripped. Because of that, they weren't sure but I insisted I wanted to do it. I remember thinking, if we were outside on the street and he wanted to fight, I wouldn't have run away, so why would I go home without fighting now?

“I remember he asked me what bout I was in. He obviously didn't realise I was fighting him because I was so much smaller. When I told him I was bout nine he realised we were fighting. He obviously took a bit of confidence from the size difference and I don't blame him.

“And this is how bad it was for me, I remember my coaches actually told me that Joshua was a southpaw! So when we were warming up on the pads, we were preparing for a southpaw. Then when he comes out he was orthodox. I just thought 'oh great'.”

Joshua went on to win gold in the super-heavyweight division at the London 2012 Olympics (Getty)

Often amateur debutants are totally constricted by nerves but not Brede, despite the mammoth task – and man – in front of him.

“I was absolutely buzzing,” he adds. “I couldn't wait to get in there. I loved fighting. I used to get in trouble all the time and fight out on the street so to do it properly was a real buzz for me.

“I remember the referee even said to me ‘are you nervous?’ I said, ‘no mate’ and he replied, ‘well you should be.’”

Sadly for the visitor, the referee was right. Within 30 seconds, the hulking, orthodox Joshua had floored his opponent with his first meaningful jab. Then, when Brede was down again moments later, the referee waved it off.

He recalls: “I remember getting up from the first one and I wasn't hurt one bit. The ref gave me an eight count and let us carry on. I remember we went into a clinch and just the sheer weight pushing down on me sent me down again, he didn't hit me with any punches.

“Then the referee waved it off, I was gutted. I didn't even wait for the result I just got straight out of the ring. I was absolutely steaming with the stoppage. I wasn't happy at all.”

Christmas that year was totally ruined. Brede was embarrassed by how his debut had gone and the promising boxer was having doubts about the sport he had fallen in love with so quickly.

In the decade that has followed, IBF, WBA and WBO champion Joshua has developed a reputation as a career-ender at the professional level, as many of his victims never box again. In many ways, it started the first time he ever stepped through the ropes.

“Let me tell you, that Joshua fight absolutely affected me for the next three or four years,” says Brede. “I'm not even joking.

“It was just a sheer weight of embarrassment and shame, you know? I thought about it all the time. It was so hard to take. It was real, real bad.

“I never got the confidence back. I never got that buzz back. That was all because of that one night. I was so buzzing for it, I was loving it and to lose like that was just so hard to take.

“I had two fights in the following year and I won them both but it wasn't the same. The feeling had completely changed, I was just so nervous. I was just thinking about Joshua. I didn’t really want to do it anymore.”

Joshua's knockout of Wladmir Klitschko made him the biggest name in heavyweight boxing (Getty)

Nowadays, Brede is a big AJ fan and watches every fight on TV. However, he concedes that the experience is never without pangs of regret.

“I still think about the Joshua fight all the time,” he says. “Even now 10 years on. I still sit there and think, ‘What if?’ You know?

“If I had got down to light heavy for my first bout, who knows what might have happened. If I hadn't fought a 6ft 6in lump on my debut, everything might have turned out different.

“That could be me there instead of Joshua. Who knows?

“I was sitting around the other day and I thought, ‘I'm going to get fit and box again’. But how am I going to do that with four kids? I haven't got the time to do anything.

“I wonder what might have become of me if I had said on the night, 'Do you know what? He's too big' and turned it down. That might have been the perfect thing to do.

“But instead – November 27, 2018 is 10 years to the day since I lost to Anthony Joshua and there's nothing I can do to change it.”