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189 days after his world fell apart, Anthony Joshua was back on top of it.
On December 7, it took just 36 minutes to silence the critics.
Go back six months and ‘AJ’ had been bulldozed by one of the most improbable champions in history. Chubby California native Andy Ruiz Jr aesthetically seemed no match for Joshua. This was supposed to be a walk in the park, eventually ending up with a highlight reel knockout to introduce himself onto American shores.
Instead, Joshua was handed the beating of his life. The man, whose genetics wore resemblance to some form of Greek God, had been humiliated by a Snickers loving, couch-sitting, overweight slouch.
Not only did Ruiz beat Joshua, he utterly dominated him. Knocked down four times and stopped in seven rounds, the juggernaut of boxing became the laughing stock of the sport. During that ominous night in New York, Joshua lost his belts and a sudden disconnection, from his once adoring fans.
Despite being the man who climbed off the canvas to stop all-time great, Wladimir Klitschko in one of the most dramatic heavyweight fights of modern history, Joshua was now labelled a coward. It raised the question: was he ever really that good?
Adversity beckoned.
A defeat was always going to require an inquest, an aftermath. However, few would have predicted one quite as severe. The backlash gathered an epidemic of ridicule which came firing from all angles; boxing fans, boxing pundits and perhaps the worst of all, boxing peers, assassinated the character of Anthony Joshua. Many believed Joshua quit – surely the worst insult for any fighter to hear.
For all the hate and barrage of abuse suffered, Joshua never offered any excuses. Reports of concussion in sparring and serious health issues in the build-up to the bout were rife. Nonetheless, AJ stayed quiet.
Despite winning Olympic Gold and becoming the unified heavyweight champion, the legacy of Joshua was torn to shreds.
Not only did the 30-year-old have to contend with the loss of personal pride, but his reputation had taken such a battering that most individuals on this earth would never recover from. To compound the issue, calls for an early retirement grew by the day.
Hopes of the Deontay Wilder fight now paled into insignificance. The sport Anthony Joshua fell in love with, solely became a business; his brand ‘AJ BXNG’ had taken over.
Perhaps the signs were there all along. When he gave Ruiz the belts to hold at the press conference two days before the fight, Joshua seemed exhausted and tired of the pressures being a champion brought.
Sleepless nights followed. Somehow, someway, he had to lock away the scarring demons of the American nightmare and rediscover his identity.
A fortnight after, a hurting Joshua touched down on African soil and attempted to re-establish himself with his Nigerian heritage. The healing process was underway.
The trailblazer of British boxing simply had to take the Ruiz rematch immediately or risk not seeing those belts ever again. In all likelihood, they would have stayed in the U.S. and never returned. Given his super-stardom, Joshua couldn’t have been able to take a year out or have a couple of warm-up fights to rebuild confidence.
With the rematch pencilled in at the end of the year, Joshua evaluated and adapted his methods. But with over £50 million pounds in the bank and his family and generations beyond set for life, many doubted whether the fire still burned.
Would Joshua return better than ever or remain the fallen giant?
“I didn’t lose heart or fire in my belly” Joshua said pre-rematch. “There is no fear in my heart, my eyes or my mind. I didn’t lose any commitment. I turn this stuff into a positive otherwise it will eat you up, and will fold into a way that I don’t want it to go.
“I had to own the situation and make it work for me.”
The same routines that catapulted him into the sporting stratosphere were now up for investigation. He opted to stick with long-time coach Robert McCracken, when many said twist. He added more to the camp, rather than tear up the entire script. Enlisting the help of Angel Fernandez, an unknown Spanish coach, and Joby Clayton, Joshua chose carefully.
He slowly went through all the people who had his best interests at heart and the ones who were there for the glory but not the fall.
Through the hardship, Joshua regained his edge and learned to trust his own instincts; in a move away from his media-trained act, Joshua hit back at the cynics.
His first move saw him call Lennox Lewis a ‘clown’ after feeling Lewis had gone overboard with his criticism. “I don’t respect Lennox.” Joshua stated in early September. “If you are going to keep poking me and poking me into a corner, I am going to fight back.”
But he did reach out to former foe and now mentor, Wladimir Klitschko, for words of wisdom. In every decision AJ made, there was reasoning behind it.
The healing process was finished. A 12 week camp for December 7 in Saudi Arabia ensued.
In between training sessions, the Watford-born man became obsessed with the 70’s heavyweights. George Foreman tapes were watched and re-watched. Continual studying of the sport known as the ‘sweet science’ had lit the fire that hadn’t been stoked for a while. Joshua’s romance with the 70’s era even persuaded him to try the same afro hairstyle Foreman had throughout his period of dominance.
“I’ve watched loads of videos, old fights, there’s loads of stuff and you can really start to indulge yourself in the sweet science. But I didn’t give a f*** about the science, I just came to fight. Now I’m learning about the sweet science again.”
Fast forward to the week after December 7 and Joshua is a two-time heavyweight champion of the world. The fourth man in heavyweight history to reclaim his belts in an immediate rematch. To put the achievement into context, only Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali and Lennox Lewis had gone before him.
The robotic, stiff, body-builder Joshua was no longer. The once muscle-bound 6ft 6 giant danced like a middleweight for 12 rounds, putting a boxing clinic on Andy Ruiz Jr. The game-plan was executed to perfection. The newer, leaner version of AJ had emerged.
When Anthony Joshua’s hand was raised out in the desert of Saudi Arabia, the critics were silenced. The mental fortitude of the man should now and never be doubted again.
A fraction of fighters who had been concussed and badly hurt in a first fight would never have even taken a rematch, yet alone turn the tables quite as dramatically.
For all the millions in the bank and the numerous commercial deals, boxing sculpted Anthony Joshua to the man he is today. While it’s understandable boxing politics and the back-stabbing nature of the business caused Joshua to become disillusioned, his love for the sport never left completely.
Possibly it is the same love he felt after walking into the gym for the first time, with his cousin 12 years ago. All those memories of hitting the heavy bag in the Finchley gym whilst having an electronic tag around his ankle, came flooding back following defeat.
The next day after reclaiming his belts, Joshua wanted to train and prepare for his next fight in the new year.
One loss did not define Anthony Joshua. And now, AJ reclaims his throne at the head table of heavyweight boxing.
The Anthony Joshua legacy is set in stone.
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