A knockout machine in the ring, Anthony Joshua has developed a reputation as one of boxing’s more genial figures out of it. So it came as a surprise to hear the heavyweight express his desire to make the Mexican American Eric Molina “look like shit” when the pair square up next month.
Joshua faces the 34-year-old at the Manchester Arena on 10 December in what will be the second defence of his IBF title and Friday saw the beginning of promotional duties for both fighters, which to a large extent explains Joshua’s attention-grabbing remark, because this is a fight that needs a fair amount of promoting. Molina, after all, is the replacement for Wladimir Klitschko, whom Joshua was set to meet in a little over a month’s time before the Ukrainian picked up a “minor injury” in training. Molina is a game opponent and has an interesting story but he is no Klitschko. The sense of anticlimax is tangible.
Joshua admitted as much when he described himself as a “little bit” disappointed not to be taking on the 40-year-old former three-belt holder next. But with the pair expected to fight next spring after the WBA finally agreed to the “super” version of their world heavyweight title also being up for grabs – a major stipulation for Klitschko – the 27-year-old insists he is fully focused on Molina and putting on a show against a man who has vowed to provide the 2012 Olympic champion with the toughest fight he has been in since turning professional.
“They [opposition fighters] say they’re going to give me the toughest fight of my life and if that’s their mentality, I’ll reverse it and make them look like shit,” said Joshua, who has stopped each of the 17 men he has faced since winning gold in London, including Charles Martin, who he knocked out inside two rounds to become world champion seven months ago. “If I took him [Molina] 12 rounds but played with him, that would say I have a better skill set. If I knock him out early, that says I have better punching power. As long as I win in a good fashion I can tick a good box.”
Joshua was in noticeably relaxed mood as he spoke and put that down to having taken the longest break of his professional career following his seventh-round stoppage of Dominic Breazeale in June. That was the joint furthest anyone had taken Joshua and by the Briton’s own admission he was not at his best going into what was his first defence of the IBF title, after a disrupted training camp and glandular fever. “The break after was a godsend,” he said. “Me and the lads had an unbelievable holiday – to Koh Samui in Thailand – and I only started getting back into boxing when I went to Rio [Olympics] to watch the fights out there. I came back a week or so later and have been back in the gym since.”
Joshua admitted he was preparing for Klitschko until two weeks ago but insists switching focus to Molina has not been problematic. “These things happen,” he said. “I just crack on and keep the ball rolling.” That is also the case for Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, who was at his hard-selling best at the press conference, hailing the quick sale of tickets for this fight (15,000 in five minutes, apparently). But there is no doubt he faces a challenge persuading the usual number of people to take up pay-per-view subscriptions now it is Molina and not Klitschko who is on the bill. The Texas-born fighter arrives in England having won 25 of his 28 professional bouts, 19 by knockout. But it says much about Molina’s record that the most notable fight was a defeat to WBC champion Deontay Wilder in June last year. Molina rocked the undefeated 31-year-old with a left hook in the third round before Wilder recovered and finished off the job in trademark powerful fashion in the ninth.
Molina believes that display, along with his most recent – the 10-round stoppage of two division world champion Tomasz Adamek in Poland on 2 April – shows he has the physical capabilities and mental strength to overcome Joshua, with the latter attribute backed up by the fact he has up until now combined boxing with being a full-time special-needs teacher in the Texan city of Edinburg.
“I’ve no amateur experience but I’m getting better in every fight,” Molina said. “I’m here to make history.”
