Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua OBE (born 15 October 1989) is a British professional boxer. He is a two-time former unified world heavyweight champion, having held the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO titles twice between 2016 and 2021. At regional level, he held the British and Commonwealth heavyweight titles from 2015 to 2016.

 

Real name: Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua
Nickname(s): AJ
Weight(s): Heavyweight
Height: 6 ft 6 in (198 cm)
Reach: 82 in (208 cm)
Born: 15 October 1989 (age 33) Watford, Hertfordshire, England
Stance: Orthodox
Boxing record
Total fights: 27
Wins: 24
Wins by KO: 22
Losses: 3

As an amateur, Joshua represented England at the 2011 World Championships in the super-heavyweight division, winning a silver medal. He also represented Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics, winning gold. In 2014, a year after turning professional, he was named Prospect of the Year by The Ring magazine. In 2017, his victorious fight against Wladimir Klitschko was named Fight of the Year by The Ring and the Boxing Writers Association of America. Joshua is the second British boxer, after James DeGale, to win both a gold medal at the Olympics and a world title by a major professional sanctioning body, as well as the first British heavyweight to do so.

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As of October 2022, Joshua is ranked as the world’s second-best active heavyweight by BoxRec,[2] third by The Ring,[3] and fourth by Transnational Boxing Rankings Board[4] and ESPN,[5] as well as the sixth-best active boxer, pound for pound, by BoxRec.[6] He has been ranked by BoxRec as among the world’s top 10 heavyweights since 2014, and was ranked at No. 1 at the conclusion of 2016 and 2017.[7] Joshua’s knockout-to-win percentage stands at 91.67%, with an overall knockout percentage of 63.64% in world heavyweight title fights.

Early life
Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua was born on 15 October 1989 in Watford, Hertfordshire, the son of Yeta and Robert Joshua. His mother is Nigerian, while his father is of Nigerian and Irish ancestry. Joshua’s Nigerian background can be specifically traced back to the Yoruba people, amongst whom he is of aristocratic rank. His cousin, Ben Ileyemi, is also a professional boxer. The pair made their professional debuts together in 2013. Joshua spent some of his early years in Nigeria as a boarding school student at Mayflower School in Ikenne. Following his parents’ divorce when he was 12, he returned to the UK halfway through Year Seven to join Kings Langley Secondary School. Growing up on the Meriden Estate in Garston, Hertfordshire, he was called “Femi” by his friends and former teachers, due to his middle name, Oluwafemi. He excelled at football and athletics and broke his school’s Year Nine 100 m record with a time of 11.6 seconds.

 

Personal life
Joshua has expressed an interest in chess as well as reading as a way to reinforce his boxing and tactical abilities. He was a bricklayer before taking up boxing full-time.

In 2009, Joshua was put on remand in Reading Prison for what he describes as “fighting and other crazy stuff.” He was made to wear an electronic tag on his ankle when released.

In March 2011, Joshua was pulled over by the police for speeding in Colindale, North London. He was found with eight ounces (226.8 grams) of herbal cannabis hidden in a sports bag in his Mercedes-Benz. He was charged with possession with intent to supply a class B drug, an offence that carries a maximum 14-year sentence. Joshua was suspended from the GB Boxing squad and was sentenced to a 12-month community order and 100 hours’ unpaid work after pleading guilty at crown court.

Joshua previously stated in 2012 that he does not support a football team, but when asked in an interview in 2017, he said that although he supports his local team Watford F.C., his “overall favourite” team was Real Madrid C.F. because of Cristiano Ronaldo, as Ronaldo was a Real Madrid player at the time. In the same interview, he also described English footballer Troy Deeney, who he met by chance at a local barbershop in his hometown Watford, as his “good friend”.

 

In an interview with iFL TV in July 2014, Joshua named Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, Lennox Lewis, and Evander Holyfield as his top five greatest heavyweight boxers of all-time.

Joshua fathered a son named Joseph “JJ” Joshua, with dance teacher Nicole Osbourne, in 2015.

In 2020, Joshua spoke about his positive relationship with his longtime promoter Eddie Hearn, who has promoted him since his professional debut in 2013, saying that he “and Eddie will always have a great friendship.”

Bella Shmurda – My Friend

Professional boxing record
27 fights 24 wins 3 losses
By knockout 22 1
By decision 2