The Olympic gold medallist, 26, challenges IBF heavyweight champion Martin in only his 16th fight as a professional and having not faced a southpaw since leaving the amateur ranks.
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Anthony Joshua has described this Saturday’s IBF heavyweight title fight with Charles Martin as “war”.
But if Martin is at all nervous about jumping in the ring (Showtime, 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT) against Joshua at London’s O2 Arena, which will be packed with 20,000 mostly pro-Joshua supporters, he’s definitely hiding it well.
When it comes to us big, heavy-hitters we don’t play games. “We saw what happened to the hulking 6’5 ½”, 260lb Carnera when he got inside the ring with the talented heavyweights like Max Baer and Joe Louis.
Joshua himself said in Thursday’s press conference: “It’s not going to be easy, no fight is easy”. I’ll probably go out there and try to take his head off… “It is a big deal because I look at it like when you go back in history, [George] Foreman fought [Muhammad] Ali”.
“I’m going to knock him out in four”, said Martin, who is seldom given to predictions.
Joshua, who has won all 15 of his bouts by knockout, responded: “I’m not here to be part of the show, I’m here to make an impact”. I came too far, my whole life has been changed.
The professional debut of Conor Benn, the son of former double world champion Nigel, has rightly attracted a lot of attention, but at middleweight two veterans are scrapping for the right not to exit the sport.
For all of his talent and obvious power, Joshua remains raw when compared to the division’s other leading fighters Tyson Fury, Wladimir Klitschko, Deontay Wilder and David Haye.
“Someone like me – I punch a lot harder than that guy did and I punch a lot faster”. When you doubt me it’s fuel for my fire.
At some stage you’d expect Joshua to land cleanly on Martin and at that point we’ll find out how good the American’s whiskers are. You can prove the second group wrong, hopefully, when you’re getting your hand raised at the end of the fight.
It will be interesting to see how he handles it – and what a night it will be if I can lift that belt at the end of the night.
A fast and powerful right hand, like so many which had stopped each of Joshua’s previous 15 opponents, put Martin to the canvas midway through the second and left Martin clearly uncertain. When some guys get hit, they get scared. I go in there with my antennas to the ceiling and I won’t take my eyes off him until the job is done. Two Brits defend their world titles tomorrow before I face Charles, so there will be three British world rulers under the dome tomorrow.
This is my livelihood and I get real emotional with this.
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Or, in Anthony Joshua’s case, with a pot of Greek yoghurt.
