A friend asked me recently what I thought Anthony Joshua should do next. There have been reports that Joshua will fight again this summer and other reports that he has decided to wait until December. Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder have been mentioned as possible opponents. But there may be a rematch against Dillian Whyte or a fight against a second-tier opponent.
I thought about those and other options. And the answer hit me with crystal clarity: Joshua should retire.
Joshua won a gold medal in the super-heavyweight division at the 2012 London Olympics and captured the IBF world heavyweight title four years later by knocking out the lightly regarded Charles Martin. In 2017, in his 19th professional fight, he defended his throne against former heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko before 90,000 frenzied fans at Wembley Stadium.
Joshua-Klitschko was an enthralling spectacle. That night, Joshua fulfilled his promise as a fighter by climbing off the canvas to knock out Klitschko in the 11th round. But since then, Joshua’s skills have stagnated. And more significantly, he no longer appears willing to walk through fire to win as he did against Klitschko. He has lost three of his last six fights.
Joshua has changed trainers twice since leaving longtime teacher Rob McCracken more than a year ago. There’s no indication that the switch has made him a better fighter. He looked pedestrian in his last outing – a lacklustre decision over Jermaine Franklin earlier this month. Boxing writer Paul Magno put that fight in perspective, stating: “It was a performance well beneath a man once hyped as the future of boxing. Joshua’s unwillingness to open up for fear of making a mistake and being hurt by a foe who was chosen precisely because he couldn’t hurt him was a portrait in frustration. It was like watching a tank cautiously manoeuvre around a tricycle for 36 long minutes.”
Joshua is 33. He can make a huge amount of money by fighting again. But he already has generational wealth. Fighting is no longer an economic imperative for him. And no sport exacts a physical toll on its practitioners the way boxing does.
I have no knowledge of any MRI or other test result indicating that Joshua has the beginnings of brain damage. But the hard truths of boxing are cause for any fighter to be concerned. Getting hit in the head again and again causes brain damage. Getting hit in the head by a heavyweight boxer is likely to cause more brain damage. The only question is: “How much?”
Moreover, the symptoms caused by repeated blows to the head progress steadily long after a fighter has retired from boxing. As neurologist Margaret Goodman has noted: “The most difficult aspect of chronic brain injuries lies in the fact that, by the time a fighter is showing symptoms, it’s too late.”
The condition is largely irreversible.
Raise your hands. How many people want to see Joshua whacked in the head by Wilder or battered around the ring by Fury?
Joshua wants to become heavyweight champion again. Three months after losing to Oleksandr Usyk for the second time, he acknowledged: “I ain’t the champion and it’s hurting a lot.”
People who stand to make money from Joshua will urge him to keep fighting.
But a fighter should take responsibility for his own wellbeing. And there comes a time when – no matter how much money a fighter can make – the risk-reward calculus shifts against him continuing to fight.
Joshua has already got everything that’s important and good that he can get from boxing. The sport will never again be as kind to him as it was on the night he beat Klitschko. There’s no supervening reason for him to keep getting punched in the head and adding to the risk of long-term brain damage. There’s so much outside the ring that he can offer.
I don’t know Joshua well. We’ve chatted briefly at media events. But my knowledge of him comes largely from watching him at a distance and talking with people who know him far better than I do. From the little I know, I like him. In addition to being a man of elegance and grace, he seems like a good person.
I hope Joshua reads this article. And I hope that he thinks seriously about what I’ve written. It takes courage to be a fighter. Sometimes it takes more courage for a fighter to stop fighting.
Joshua has the prettiest smile I’ve seen in boxing since Muhammad Ali’s.
Ali’s smile wasn’t so pretty at the end.
Thomas Hauser’s most recent book – In the Inner Sanctum: Behind the Scenes at Big Fights – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honour – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
