He may be fed up with the constant media demands he is required to satisfy but Anthony Joshua doesn’t have long to wait before he steps into the ring with Otto Wallin on this weekend’s ‘Day of Reckoning’ card in Saudi Arabia.
Despite the constant noise and speculation that surrounds the two-time unified heavyweight champion, if Joshua can get past the Swede in drama free fashion it would put the cap on a very solid year’s work.
Although he is now 34 years old, 2023 has been Joshua’s most active year since 2016, the year he first became a world heavyweight champion. He boxed his way to a decision victory against Jermaine Franklin in April and knocked out Robert Helenius in August. Wallin is widely regarded as a very solid, avoided opponent and is extremely confident of beating Joshua. It will get overshadowed by talk of future bouts, but this would be Joshua’s best victory since he beat Andy Ruiz in their rematch back in 2019.
Joshua clearly feels the benefit of staying busy. He is almost certain to finally lock horns with his longtime rival, Wilder, in 2024 but doesn’t want the whole year to be built around that one fight. Joshua wants the Wilder fight to be part of a busy 2024.
“I’m a fighter by nature. I look at myself in the mirror and all I see is a fighter. It’s just what I do. Whether I’m in camp or not, I’m always ready to fight,” he told Matchroom Boxing.
“For me personally, inactivity is a great killer of ambition, so I made sure I’m staying active, I’m staying ambitious. The good thing about this card is that it shows you don’t really need long training camps. As long as you’re staying busy and active so next year I could actually get more busy. I tended to have this mindset where it was that three month camps are important to get ready for fights. This came around really quickly. I said three [fights] this year so I’m ticking that box off. Next year I might go for four.”