Often in boxing defeats tend to open as many doors as they close and push previously uncertain fighters together.
In the case of Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, two heavyweights currently in a slump, this theory has never been truer. They have in fact never been more in need of each other and, as a result, never been closer to actually sharing a ring.
Should that happen, it would still have come much too late, but that doesn’t mean it is a fight without appeal – both for us, and for them. For Joshua, in particular, there is now a willingness – closer to acceptance or resignation – to roll the dice in ways he was perhaps reluctant to when either unbeaten or nearer the top of the heavyweight tree.
Speaking this week in Lagos, Nigeria, where he visited President Bola Tinubu, Joshua said of a potential Fury fight: “We’ll see, let’s get in the ring. Only God knows, but for me, we’ll see in the future.”
Far more revealing was what Joshua said when speaking with State House Correspondents about the importance of making the right moves in 2025 and reclaiming all he lost in 2024. “Time is of the essence, time is limited,” he said. “So, I just want to put in more work.
“In 2024, when I look back, I believe I could have done more and I have another chance in 2025 to do more.
“I’m going to make sure that I take every opportunity that comes my way. I’m going to go again.
“Ups and downs, they happen. To some people, it is always up. My life is up and down, so I have got to get used to the turbulent times and keep riding the wave.
“I can’t stop now; I have to keep going until I reach my destination.”
The beauty of being on top, of course, is that there is always a false sense of control, over both opponents and fate, and it is to your schedule other people work and to your beat other people dance.
Suffer one defeat, however, and this goes, as Joshua, 28-4 (25), knows only too well. He has suffered not one defeat but four of them in his 11-year pro career and now knows what it is to both have and lose the feeling of control. At 35, having lost three of his last seven fights, the former heavyweight champion enters 2025 as a man looking up at opponents rather than down on them, and it is from this position, where it is easy to be overlooked, potential opponents may consider him diminished, vulnerable, and there for the taking. And yet, from this same position, Joshua will be thinking only of the danger he can bring and how being written off and therefore free of pressure might not be such a bad thing after all.
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