Anthony Joshua OBE is an English professional boxer. He is a two-time former unified world heavyweight champion, having held the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO titles twice between 2016 and 2021. At regional level, he held the British and Commonwealth heavyweight titles from 2015 to 2016.
Early Life
Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua was born on 15 October 1989 in Watford, Hertfordshire, the son of Yeta and Robert Joshua. His mother is Nigerian, while his father is of Nigerian and Irish ancestry. Joshua’s Nigerian background can be specifically traced back to the Yoruba people, amongst whom he is of aristocratic rank. His cousin, Ben Ileyemi, is also a professional boxer. The pair made their professional debuts together in 2013. Joshua spent some of his early years in Nigeria as a boarding school student at Mayflower School in Ikenne. Following his parents’ divorce when he was 12, he returned to the UK halfway through Year Seven to join Kings Langley Secondary School. Growing up on the Meriden Estate in Garston, Hertfordshire, he was called “Femi” by his friends and former teachers, due to his middle name, Oluwafemi. He excelled at football and athletics and broke his school’s Year Nine 100 m record with a time of 11.6 seconds.
Career
As an amateur, Joshua represented England at the 2011 World Championships in the super-heavyweight division, winning a silver medal. He also represented Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics, winning gold. In 2014, a year after turning professional, he was named Prospect of the Year by The Ring magazine. In 2017, his victorious fight against Wladimir Klitschko was named Fight of the Year by The Ring and the Boxing Writers Association of America. Joshua is the second English boxer, after James DeGale, to win both a gold medal at the Olympics and a world title by a major professional sanctioning body, as well as the first English heavyweight to do so.
As of October 2022, Joshua is ranked as the world’s second-best active heavyweight by BoxRec, third by The Ring, and fourth by Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and ESPN, as well as the sixth-best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec. He has been ranked by BoxRec as among the world’s top 10 heavyweights since 2014, and was ranked at No. 1 at the conclusion of 2016 and 2017. Joshua’s knockout-to-win percentage stands at 88%, with an overall knockout percentage of 58% in world heavyweight title fights.
- Fun fact: Joshua was a bricklayer before taking on boxing full-time.
Joshua is recognised as one of the most marketable athletes in the world, and has lucrative endorsement deals with numerous brands, including Under Armour, Beats By Dre, and Lucozade. In 2017, he was ranked as the world’s most marketable athlete, ahead of basketball player Stephen Curry, who was ranked most marketable the previous year. Along with his boxing ability, this has been attributed to his “rags to riches” story, enforcing a narrative that he avoided a life of violence and crime by dedicating himself to boxing.
Joshua has spoken of his ambition to surpass Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s reported career earnings of $700 million, saying in an interview with GQ, “When I first started, the aim was to become a multi-millionaire. But now there are ordinary people, grandmas and grandads, who are worth millions just because of property prices. So the new school of thought is that I need to be a billionaire. Being a millionaire is good but you have to set your sights higher.”
Joshua has also been recognised with his inclusion in the annual Powerlist as one of the 100 most influential Black Britons, most recently in the 2021 edition. He has a tattoo of the continent of Africa on his right shoulder, with the territory of Nigeria outlined, and says he feels a strong connection to his Nigerian roots.
In August 2022, Joshua faced questions around the controversy of his world-title challenge taking place in Saudi Arabia. He was also questioned about the human rights situation in the Kingdom, after the Arab authorities sentenced a 34-year-old woman for 34 years in prison over her Twitter activity. However, he said that people were “loving the positive side of things” and they “don’t focus on anything that’s negative”. Yasser al-Khayat, whose brother Mustafa was executed by Saudi authorities, also wrote a letter to Joshua and urged him to stand up for the human rights. He wrote to Joshua that speaking out could make a real difference, as Saudi uses the events like boxing “to distract from its oppression”.
Personal Life
Joshua has expressed an interest in chess as well as reading as a way to reinforce his boxing and tactical abilities.
In 2009, Joshua was put on remand in Reading Prison for what he describes as “fighting and other crazy stuff.” He was made to wear an electronic tag on his ankle when released.
In March 2011, Joshua was pulled over by the police for speeding in Colindale, North London. He was found with eight ounces (226.8 grams) of herbal cannabis hidden in a sports bag in his Mercedes-Benz. He was charged with possession with intent to supply a class B drug, an offence that carries a maximum 14-year sentence. Joshua was suspended from the GB Boxing squad and was sentenced to a 12-month community order and 100 hours’ unpaid work after pleading guilty at crown court.
Joshua previously stated in 2012 that he does not support a football team, but when asked in an interview in 2017, he said that although he supports his local team Watford F.C., his “overall favourite” team was Real Madrid C.F. because of Cristiano Ronaldo, as Ronaldo was a Real Madrid player at the time. In the same interview, he also described English footballer Troy Deeney, who he met by chance at a local barbershop in his hometown Watford, as his “good friend”.
In an interview with iFL TV in July 2014, Joshua named Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, Lennox Lewis, and Evander Holyfield as his top five greatest heavyweight boxers of all-time.
In 2015, Joshua welcomed a son named Joseph “JJ” Joshua, with dance teacher Nicole Osbourne.
In 2020, Joshua spoke about his positive relationship with his longtime promoter Eddie Hearn, who has promoted him since his professional debut in 2013, saying that he “and Eddie will always have a great friendship.”
Net Worth
Anthony Joshua has an estimated net worth of £120million.
Coming with his powerful draw in terms of audience figures, Joshua has earned some lucrative purses including £65 million for his previous rematch loss to Usyk in Saudi Arabia.
However, reports suggest he could pocket up to another £10 million for his latest bout where he defeated Jermaine Franklin on Saturday Night, 1 April 2023.
