Anthony Joshua takes on Carlos Takam in Cardiff on Saturday and is already planning a unification bout against Deontay Wilder in 2018. Photograph: Matthew Childs/Action Images via Reuters
Anthony Joshua does not get much wrong. He lives the life and he talks it in a string of articulate interviews lit up by a smile that should excite the interest of any toothpaste company.
The three-belt world heavyweight champion is as near to perfect as any professional athlete operating today. Yet, before the mandated defence of his IBF title against the late replacement Carlos Takam in Cardiff on Saturday night, there is an infinitesimal sliver of suspicion that he is breaking the golden rule of boxing: looking beyond his next opponent.
Joshua does make the obligatory noises about the obvious qualities of the 36-year-old Frenchman: strength, determination and a rock-like chin. He acknowledges, too, that he has had to adjust his tactics since the late withdrawal through injury of his mandatory challenger, Kublat Pulev. His pre-fight analysis is as scientific as his trainer, Rob McCracken, would demand of the champion.
Much of that, however, has been for domestic consumption. Joshua told Sky this week: “People have said: ‘Josh, what round? What round?’ I think we’re going for a 10- to 12-round fight because this guy’s head is like a block of cement.” All true – and comforting for customers wondering if it is worth shelling out £19.95 for the privilege of witnessing it.
There is an obligation to ensure Sky’s pay-per-view audience will be convinced this is as dangerous a contest as the original was expected to be – which somehow ignores the fact Takam is not Pulev, who most definitely is not Wladimir Klitschko, who gave Joshua the fight of his life in front of 90,000 fans at Wembley Stadium this summer.
This is a long way removed from that challenge. The hoped-for audience in the Principality Stadium is 70,000, mightily impressive if it is realised.
Away from local microphones, however, Joshua has addressed a different agenda: the inevitable unification showdown with the unbeaten American WBC champion and knockout artist Deontay Wilder.
In an international teleconference organised by Showtime, the American wing of the promotion, Joshua went straight to the point: “There’s two things that I’m focusing on. One is that [Takam] is just like another fight and the second is winning. Then we can all move on to see what 2018 holds.”
What it holds is the Wilder fight. The trick is getting there. Wilder defends against the aging but dangerous Bermane Stiverne next month and then will have to deal with demands from Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, that he meet the Londoner Dillian Whyte to get to the unification bout, probably outdoors in the UK next summer.
“He’s what the division needs and I think this is what Wilder needs, so we’ll give it to them,” Joshua said. “I say it’s definitely a potential for 2018. What else am I going to do in 2018 provided that I don’t have any mandatories? I’ll be a free agent. If dealt with right with Eddie Hearn and the US, I think it could be built to be something just like the Klitschko fight. It should be better.
“I’m excited. I’m very excited. I would love to fight the great champions that the United States has produced. At the same time I’ll fight anywhere. I’m fine staying in the UK but America’s definitely at the top of the pyramid. Before I wanted to go out there for the experience. Now I want to go out there and make me some money.”
Hearn wants the Joshua-Wilder fight in the UK, where it would guarantee another 90,000-plus audience at Wembley. But, asked if he foresaw the fight happening in the US, the champion said: “I can see it happening in the US. If you came to Wembley on 29 April you saw what that was like. It was phenomenal. That was really good. So do we want to create that again or should we go overseas and do something new? It’s good to have options.”
Returning to the job in hand on Saturday, Joshua said there was no chance the show would not go on after Pulev pulled out. “He had to make the decision. From a fighter’s point of view, you have to put the fighter first. From a second point of view, I don’t want to take the opportunity from a lot of my friends on the undercard because they’re not going to make their money.
“Then you’ve got to think of the fans as well, because there’s so many people that book hotels, travel, time off work. Before I think of myself I think of all these other people that have come out to have a good time and are dependent on me. So that’s why I said I’m really happy the show could go on, not just for me. A lot of people would have lost out.”
He then chastised Wilder for threatening to walk away from his defence when his original opponent, Luis Ortiz, was scrubbed after failing a second drugs test. “I find it funny. It’s like Twitter-fingers now, like doing your business behind closed doors. Ortiz failed a drug test, so be it, move on to the next one. Ortiz comes off his ban and you box him then. No need to cry about it and say that nobody wants to fight you.
“Of course we want to fight you, Deontay, you’re the champion. You’re the hunted. He just needs to start thinking that way and stop feeling sorry for himself, just keep quiet and don’t show any weakness in this game. This is heavyweight boxing.”
It is a game that Joshua has mastered. Perhaps he is so good he can take his eye off Takam for a moment to view the wider landscape. It is his domain, after all. His job on Saturday is to make sure he is still in charge of it.
Yet, for all his success, Joshua has never cut himself adrift from his roots. He has had his well-documented teenage troubles in Watford, and it has contributed to his sharp sense of perspective as a multimillionaire celebrity athlete. In an environment of towering egos, the man who stands tallest talks with the least ego.
“I’m going to keep it humble because there’s still people in this sport that I look up to. I love [former light-heavyweight champion Sergey] Kovalev, I love Alexander Ustinov [the 40-year-old Russian whose only loss was when stopped late by Pulev in 2012].
“From a talent perspective, I don’t know if I’m as talented, but I hustle the smartest. I work the hardest. You can’t deny that. We’re all carrying this weight. Even promoters are carrying this weight it’s not just me. We all have different attributes.”
He did have some final thoughts on Takam, though – with one eye still on the future.
“To have a style like Takam’s, not a lot of people have long careers. He just eats up a little bit of ground each round. He could throw a jab, right hand to the head, left hook, right hook and be looking good and, all of a sudden, everything he’s doing wasn’t working because the person you’re fighting is still coming.
“So, I think by round six, seven or eight, he starts applying pressure because he’s got that type of fighter with the ‘I’m going to absorb and measure everything you do’ mindset – which is a dangerous style. I’ve fought [Dominic] Breazeale, [John] Molina, and Klitschko. And, for Kubrat Pulev, I’ve focused on a lot of taller fighters. They say Carlos Takam fights at 6ft 2in, but he probably fights at six foot bent down and crouched over.
“All in all, what goes down in the history books is whether I win or lose. I’ve just got to do whatever I’ve got to do to get this win. It’s really important for me and the sport of boxing, because it sets up several fights in the future.”
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