TOP flight fighters live in a perpetual emotional tussle between the high of victory and the low of defeat. One of the sport’s abiding and compelling features is this sharp distinction in emotional state with little if any grey in-between. In this respect, only a chosen few fighters have never experienced the low of the defeat — Rocky Marciano, Floyd Mayweather Jr, Joe Calzaghe, Tyson Fury et al. — due to them having enjoyed and enjoying unbeaten records. This said, as Fury’s tempestous personal journey has shown, a given fighter can also be low in victory. However that’s another story for another time perhaps.

When it comes to Fury’s biggest rival in Britain, in terms of popularity if not current form, Anthony Joshua — AJ as he is popularly known — is the Floyd Patterson of our time. Patterson it was who would carry a wig, glasses and false beard to his fights to wear afterwards should he be defeated in order to be able to leave the arena without being recognised, such was his sense of shame and humiliation in the event. “The fighter,” Patterson once opined, “loses more than his pride in the fight; he loses part of his future. He’s a step closer to the slum he came from.”

That Floyd Patterson retired from the sport a multimillionaire whose financial future was secure matters not for a man who literally fought to escape the slum he describes in the above quote. The psychological scars of poverty — of the slum — never completely disappear no matter how much money in the bank or how big the house.

This is precisely where the riddle that is AJ comes into focus. 

Watching him temporarily lose his mind after his second defeat to Olexsandr Usyk in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in August was to watch a man whose inner demons had escaped and asserted dominance over the calm exterior he was known for up to that critical point. Grabbing Usyk’s belts and throwing them out of the ring, grabbing the mic from the ring announcer and ranting and raving to the crowd, then later at the post-fight presser breaking down in tears, AJ was a man unravelling. 

This unravelling came in response to the failure to maintain the success he had mistakenly allowed to define and validate him since turning pro after winning Olympic gold in London all the way back in 2012. 

In those moments you could almost hear his demons whispering in his ear. “You’re a fraud, AJ. An impostor. You don’t belong here, you don’t deserve to be here, and you know it.”

In the wake of his second defeat to the Ukrainian world champion, Joshua has been idle. The brief hopes of a December clash against long-time rival and nemesis Tyson Fury collapsed in a fog of mutual recrimination between both camps. Fury setting a deadline for Joshua to sign for the fight to which AJ demurred, citing various contractual obligations to sponsors, was nothing if not revelatory.

Imagine for a moment Muhammad Ali telling George Foreman that he couldn’t take what turned out to be their epic fight in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo) back in 1974 due to contractual obligations to sponsors. It begs the question of whether AJ is a fighter first and businessman second?

The missed opportunity to face Fury this year is the answer.

Now we hear that he is currently touring the US, putting together a new training team in advance of a comeback to take place at some undefined point in 2023 against an as yet unnamed opponent. That he will go into his next fight with his third trainer in as many fights bespeaks a fighter whose mind isn’t right. 

The much-heralded match up with respected US trainer Robert Garcia for Usyk II is over after just one fight. Why so? Talk of disagreements in camp appears to come attached with substance. And, too, Garcia isn’t the kind of man to genuflect at the altar of a fighter’s reputation, given his no-nonsense old school approach to the business. Perhaps, then, AJ’s need for a retinue of yes-men around him to bolster an ego rendered fragile over time is where the problem lies. 

The Watford native and former teenage gang member has come a long way, no doubt, but it seems he has now lost his way, unable to deal with the pressures that come with being exposed under the lights and having to live up to expectations — his own as well as everyone else’s.

He is a heavyweight now operating under Tyson Fury’s shadow. This is a difficult place to be for a fighter who once dominated the affections of British fight fans. Unlike Fury, whose mental fortitude and strength as a fighter is positively adamantine, AJ is afflicted with that most dangerous opponent of any fighter — a lack of self-belief. 

Knocked out of him by first Andy Ruiz Jr followed by Oleksandr Usyk twice in succession, AJ finds himself floundering around seeking a way back that will allow him to regain the standing he used to enjoy as world champion. If only he could acquire the services of a Cus D’Amato to man his corner from here on in: “To see a man beaten not by a better opponent but by himself is a tragedy.”

No truer word has been spoken when it comes to the riddle that is Anthony Joshua.