The Beltline: Humble and out of magic, Anthony Joshua returns after a pretty honorable defeat
FOR years, Anthony Joshua will flash his winning smile and tell all who listen that the key to life is to stay hungry and humble. He, in the hope of making more money, even stuck this spell on hats and t-shirts, as well as many other items worn by both members of his swollen entourage and fellow fans. graves paid to see him fight, or on television. or at arenas, football fields across the country.
“Stay hungry. Humble again.” Admittedly it’s hardly the deepest sentiment in the world, nor does it shed light on anything new about what it takes to be a successful professional athlete. However, it is neither here nor there.For Joshua, whose beauty lies in his ability to connect with the masses in very basic and understandable terms, that is the slogan. running for office of a politician; a People believes in even if he, who preaches it, does not necessarily believe it himself.
Of course, only Anthony Joshua knows how much he has (a) aspired to since turning pro in 2013 and (b) stayed humble despite his fame and an ever-expanding entourage. and comfortable. Surely, however, if before he had merely kept up his form, now the real test of the replaced heavyweight champion’s hunger and humility will come, after Joshua suffered consecutive defeats and had no sense of victory in more than two fights. year.
With that in mind, it is doubtful that victory will be the main goal when the Londoner returns to the ring this April. It is perhaps for that reason that the fight that was debated with Tyson Fury last December was only paper talk and why even a second fight was contested with Dillian Whyte, someone who could be defeated. but still dangerous enough to cause problems, is also considered more likely to happen in the middle of this time. year instead of the beginning of the year. In short, Joshua, 24-3 (22), needs to keep playing and he needs to win. Not only that, it’s the damage done by his last two losses, psychologically speaking, there’s a feeling to Joshua now that you don’t quite know what’s going to happen, or really he How much motivation is there?
Because obviously, if we recall the events in Saudi Arabia in August, we are dealing with a man who is in the midst of some kind of identity crisis, if not – specifically. especially on that night—a kind of total breakdown. That is to say, it was not the performance he produced against Oleksandr Usyk that caused any real concern, but rather it was consequence performance mentioned above. For it was during that time, and in the aftermath, that Joshua was found to have let his guard down to a disturbing degree; embarked on a demonstration of epic proportions, the same thing that no one had ever seen or heard of before from a pre-programmed and mostly vanilla character. Disappearing instantly that night were the looks, illusions, and masks his supporters had created for his own good since turning pro a decade ago. Stoicism or the opportunity to continue as before is also gone.
Anthony Joshua holds the mic after losing to Oleksandr Usyk (Author Mark Robinson Matchroom Boxing)
Unfortunately, Joshua couldn’t do it anymore. Now, thanks to his outburst in Jeddah, we’ve seen the “real” Joshua first-hand, meaning his return to the wind-up toy of years ago seems was an even more cynical move than when that intention was fulfilled. commercial opportunities and sponsorship deals. Now, because of his pain and transparency and – let’s be honest – no small shock, Anthony Joshua is out of the cage, set free, unruly and maybe even interesting.
That’s right. It sounds convoluted, but for interviews, none of the interviews Anthony Joshua gives are as compelling and revealing as the in-camera work he did in Jeddah five months ago. That night, rightly or wrongly, he was a man openly wounded and therefore a man painfully honest, and this honesty was once facilitated by cowardice of those around him; the men happily suckle the milk from the cow when all is well but turn a blind eye to the bloodshed when a madman with a shotgun invades the farm. Left alone, married in the Middle East, Joshua ends up as a topless man, comforted only by the pitying gazes of compassionate Ukrainians, including Oleksandr Usyk, who shunned the British as if he were a volatile alcoholic in a crowded pub.
“It was humbling,” Joshua said in an interview before that rematch against Usyk and perhaps now, in retrospect, that was the first sign that the mask was starting to come off. It’s possible, at 33, that he’s grown tired of playing CBeebies World Champion while other heavyweights, like Tyson Fury, seem to be able to get away with the murder equivalent of being able to do so. sports – both in words and in his track-enhancing history of drug use – and is still embraced by the British public as some sort of saintly inspirational figure. Perhaps for Joshua, the identity crisis began long before Oleksandr Usyk downplayed him in the purest sense of the word for 36 minutes in Saudi Arabia.
Iris Murdoch wrote in her 1970 novel: “Good is dull. A rather honorable failure. “Has any novelist ever succeeded in making a good person interesting? The characteristic of this planet is that the moral path is so dull that it can be guaranteed to break the spirit and extinguish the vision of anyone who is always trying to tread that path. In contrast, evil is interesting, engaging, and lively. It’s also far more mysterious than good. Good can be seen through. Evil is not obvious.”
In the end, whether going through an identity crisis or not, what Anthony Joshua will likely realize is that humility and longing are more than just words you print on hats, t-shirts, tea towels, and cabinet magnets. cold, nor are they just buzzwords to pass by. the top of boardroom PowerPoint presentations somewhere. Instead, they are two important things for his return, both in form and his old self; if, that is, he doesn’t end up trying to get rid of his old self.
