For nearly three weeks, boxing has been in a familiar fight for its soul and its legitimacy, as critics and fans alike have struggled to cope with the reality of Nick Blackwell being carried from a Wembley ring on a stretcher. Inevitably, financial pragmatism dictates that, across town at the O2 Arena in Greenwich on Saturday night, the debate about the sport’s worth continues, but from an altogether different perspective.
Anthony Joshua, below, and Charles Martin, unbeaten heavyweights with enough combined power to kickstart a small jet, are engaged in a pay-per-view contest on Sky that has been trailed relentlessly as a world title fight almost certain to end in a painful stoppage for the loser. For all the heartfelt concern about Blackwell – who looks to be recovering well after coming out of an induced coma last Saturday – the show goes on.
And, in keeping with tradition, Joshua, who will have the majority of the 20,000 spectators baying for him, predicts it will be over by the sixth round. Martin, fighting outside the United States for the first time, is similarly bellicose. It will not be an evening for the squeamish.
While pain is the chief selling point of the event – any professional fight, for that matter – it has also been marketed as deciding who is the heavyweight champion of the world. But, the excellence of Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko for more than a decade notwithstanding, there has not been a single properly unified title-holder since Lennox Lewis 16 years ago. Currently, the sport has four world heavyweight champions, a notion that is absurd to traditionalists and the disinterested. Integrity is as dust again.
At stake here, then, is just the quarter of the world title that Martin has owned since it was handed to him when the IBF stripped Tyson Fury for reasons too obtuse to elaborate on after his victory in Germany over Wladimir Klitschko last November.
With consummate one-upmanship, Fury’s uncle and trainer, Peter, announced a couple of hours before the Joshua-Martin weigh-in on Friday that his fighter, still owner of the WBO and (barely relevant) IBO titles, as well as the WBA’s “super” belt, has agreed terms with Klitschko for a rematch in Manchester on 9 July.
Then, in a twist as delicious as it was predictable, he said that, should Joshua beat Martin, he could meet Fury later this year in an all-British extravaganza to unify their respective strands of the title. “If Tyson comes through his obligation and Joshua comes through Martin on Saturday night, there is no reason why we can’t get that fight on next,” Peter Fury said. “We definitely want it by the end of the year. Tyson is not wanting to sit down. We don’t want to wait for long, we want to keep moving forward, keep the momentum going.”
It is a brave, perhaps daft, piece of scheduling: that is the weekend of the Euro 2016 final, the Wimbledon final and the British Grand Prix. But boxing seems incapable of functioning to maximum effect without regularly abandoning common sense.
There was another outbreak of what looked like stage-managed anarchy at the weigh-in when David Haye, coming back in pursuit of the WBA title he once held, had contretemps in the crowd with another former world champion, the shopworn but loud American Shannon Briggs. “If he fights on my undercard on 21 May,” Haye said “I’ll fight him afterwards.” You couldn’t move for past, present and future world heavyweight champions.
For the promoter of Saturday’s extravaganza, Eddie Hearn, the priority is for Joshua to come through unscathed and, with any luck, with his reputation enhanced. “Anthony Joshua appeals to such a broad market and genre of people,” he told Sky. “You can see it by the profile of the live audience in the crowd. Everyone’s dressed up, there are a lot more women coming than normal. There’s something very likeable about the way he conducts his business, in training, in the ring or in interviews. He has mass appeal.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a rival of Joshua’s or a rival promoter or a rival network: everybody should cross their fingers for a Joshua victory, because what it will do for the industry is give it a huge boost. We [British boxing, and mainly Hearn’s Matchroom and television partner, Sky] are absolutely flying at the moment. But if a guy who won Olympic heavyweight gold in London can win the heavyweight title in London, we’re cooking on gas. I’m buzzing. I’m nervous. I’m excited.”
As for his star attractions, Hearn said: “So far they have been smart enough to conserve their energy, because [they] are going at it: two 6ft 6in heavyweights, undefeated – 24 wins, 21 KO wins for Martin; 15 wins, 15 KOs for Joshua, a 94% knockout ratio. I don’t think it matters whether they’re nice to each other or they pour each other a cup of tea. They’re going to meet in a 24ft ring with 10oz gloves on and somebody’s getting knocked out. With all due respect to Charles Martin, I hope it’s him.”
For the record, Martin, looking a little fleshy around the middle despite having employed a new strength and conditioning coach, weighed 17st 7lb, a pound heavier than Joshua, who was ripped and bulked up. The champion smiled and chatted in the ritual stare-off; the challenger smiled and chewed gum – and they shook hands. After all the intensity that has coursed through the sport recently, that was good to see.
“A few butterflies, of course,” Joshua admitted, “but I’ll perform. I’ve come in light, I feel good. I trained really well.”
Martin observed: “It’s my belt, and I ain’t done havin’ fun with it. The hardest man, the man with heart: that’s what’s going to win the fight. I’m going to break him down. I live for moments like this.”
Last year, when Joshua heard that Martin might fight the 31-year-old Ukrainian Vyacheslav Glazkov for Fury’s vacated title, he responded, “Are you serious? Martin?” When Martin was gifted the win in round three after Glazkov collapsed clutching his right knee, which had given way under him in the second round, during a clumsy exchange in a low-grade fight, The heavy-handed Martin did not celebrate as if he had knocked out King Kong.
For the purposes of this promotion and in the interests of his own physical and financial wellbeing, Joshua has to regard Martin with all the requisite respect. And it is a decent contest between two inexperienced heavyweights – neither of whom, it must be said, would have got anywhere near a title shot at this stage of their careers in the days of Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Joe Frazier and others, nor that of Tyson, Lewis and the Klitschkos.
Joshua should win before halfway on a stoppage that, no doubt, will leave the fans sated.
